A year-end completion target can be hit after Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. construction hit the 90% completion mark on its 670-kilometer (400-mile) natural gas pipeline linking Montney Shale production to the Shell plc-led LNG Canada liquefied natural gas export terminal, according to the company.
All but 48 kilometers (29 miles) of pipe have been laid in sometimes hotly contested native areas on the route across mountains and muskeg swamps in northern British Columbia. Up to 6,000 contract workers are to be used to complete the most difficult, technical parts, with completion on target for December.
A Shell official in June said the LNG Canada export project in Kitimat, BC, was “more than 80% complete and on track with the first cargo by the middle of the decade.”
Forecast costs for Coastal GasLink more than doubled to C$14.5 billion ($10.8 billion) after the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic caused prolonged delays. Once the pipeline is onstream, it would be able to deliver 2.1 Bcf/d with the potential to expand by up to 5 Bcf/d through additional compression.
Pipeline costs could increase if the year-end completion is missed, project leader TC Energy Corp. has warned.
High-profile resistance made the project a Canadian celebrity. Tribal dissenters, calling themselves “traditional chiefs,” fought an agreement with TC by the elected government of Wet’suwet’en First Nation. The protests grew into small but vigorous native rights actions that disrupted cross-country railway traffic.
Prosecutions of protesters are underway. As construction hit 90%, TC management said, “The support of Indigenous and local communities along the pipeline route has been transformative in helping us progress.”
All 20 tribes on the route signed participation and benefits agreements. TC has option agreements to transfer a 10% ownership share to the First Nations LP and FN CGL Pipeline LP.
The project began a trend of industry partnerships with natives in BC LNG projects. Tribal groups support Woodfibre LNG in the Vancouver area, Cedar LNG at Kitimat, BC, near LNG Canada, and the Ksi Lisims project under review for Prince Rupert.
TC called the native participation trend “an important step on the path to advancing economic reconciliation through equity ownership.”
Coastal GasLink has engineering feats too. “We have integrated innovative methods to tackle safely some of BC’s most challenging terrain and steep slopes, including an epic cable crane which safely transports people and materials” along a 660-meter )2,158-foot) elevation gain, the company noted.
