Price Tag on Trudeau’s Oil Pipeline Project Soars to $17 Billion
- Trans Mountain expansion price tag jumps 70% for second time
- Government pledges to not put anymore public money into it
Pieces of the Trans Mountain Pipeline project sit in a storage lot outside of Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada.
Photographer: Cole Burston/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
The cost to expand the Trans Mountain oil pipeline that Justin Trudeau’s government bought from Kinder Morgan Inc. has jumped by 70% to nearly $17 billion, potentially challenging the viability of the line from Canada’s oil heartland to the Pacific Coast.
The new estimate of C$21.4 billion ($16.8 billion) includes the cost of enhancements, changes, delays, financing, as well as the impacts of the pandemic and last year’s floods in British Columbia, according to a statement released Friday by Trans Mountain Corp., which was bought in 2018 to save the expansion project from being scrapped.