Kinder Morgan Plans $5-Billion Pipeline Expansion

Kinder Morgan tanker traffic | BCBusiness
Kinder Morgan has proposed to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta’s oilsands to B.C., which would significantly increase tanker traffic through Burrard Inlet.

A large but little-known pipeline company out of Houston approves a proposed pipeline expansion from Alberta to B.C. that would add five times the tanker traffic through Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet.

Vancouver could soon see a fivefold increase in traffic, but not on the Lower Mainland’s highways and byways.
 
Kinder Morgan, a pipeline company out of Houston, plans a massive expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta’s oilsands to Vancouver to help feed Asia’s insatiable appetite for our natural resources. The $5-billion proposal would almost triple the pipeline’s capacity from 300,000 to 850,000 barrels a day.
 
And how will all that extra oil reach its destination? Oil tankers, of course. Five times the current number of oil tankers – from one every four to five days up to about one a day – would pass through Burrard Inlet to transport the torrent of additional crude, to be exact.
 
The usual environmental concerns have already surfaced, including the likelihood of spills (Kinder Morgan had to clean up a spill in Abbotsford as recently as January). But I predict the opposition to grow exponentially deeper considering the swirling controversy around Enbridge’s proposed pipeline through northern B.C. Not to mention many Vancouverites aren’t keen on spying giant tankers cruising through the picturesque inlet on a daily basis.