CALGARY – A group of oil shippers is asking the Canada Energy Regulator to compel the company behind the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to provide them with a full and detailed breakdown of the project’s escalating construction costs.
The shippers — which includes Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Suncor Energy Inc., PetroChina Canada Ltd. and Marathon Petroleum Canada — are seeking an order from the regulator requiring Trans Mountain Corp. to provide more information about why the project’s costs have ballooned to more than $30 billion from a 2017 estimate of $7.4 billion.
Oil companies are concerned with the escalating costs because they will have to pay for a portion of them in the form of rising tolls, the fee the pipeline charges its customers to move their oil.
Trans Mountain is seeking to recover more than $9 billion in costs from oil companies, through the charging of a benchmark toll that is nearly twice the amount of a 2017 estimate.
The Canada Energy Regulator has yet to make a decision on whether to approve the higher tolls.
Oil shippers say Trans Mountain Corp. must provide more detailed information in order to prove the rising price tag of the project is both reasonable and necessary.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 14, 2024.