Trans Mountain Corp will begin line fill in February on its long-delayed Canadian oil pipeline expansion and expects it to be in service in the second quarter, a company executive said on Wednesday.
The C$30.9-billion ($23.05 billion) expansion will nearly triple the flow of crude on Trans Mountain from Alberta to Canada’s Pacific Coast but has been plagued by years of delays and cost overruns.
The start-up of the expanded pipeline is expected in early April and it will ramp up to full capacity by the end of the year, said Jason Balasch, a senior director at Trans Mountain, speaking at the Argus crude summit in Houston.
The main challenge remaining with the expansion is installing a section of the pipeline through a mountain, which the company expects to complete early next week.
A portion of the pipeline will be filled in February and the full pipeline will be filled with crude oil in March, Balasch added.
(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar and Georgina McCartney in Houston)