After years of delays, court challenges and public antipathy, the government-owned Trans Mountain expansion will come into service effective May 1, documents on its website show.On Wednesday, the company said it had successfully completed the pipe pullback on a section between Hope and Chilliwack BC, representing one of the last completed segments of the 1,200-km line between Edmonton and the Lower Mainland. "Trans Mountain anticipates providing service for all contracted volumes in the month of May," it said..With the May 1 commencement date for commercial operation of the expanded system, Trans Mountain anticipates providing service for all contracted volumes in the month of May, the company said in a news release.Once complete, the new line will immediately transport about 550,000 additional barrels of oil per day of exports and reduce differentials or discounts between Canadian heavy crudes and world oil export markets. After commencement of operation of the expansion project, Trans Mountain will continue cleanup, reclamation, road and civil work, it said.With the appropriate approvals from the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) and completion of remaining construction activity, Trans Mountain will commence transporting crude oil on the expanded pipeline system as soon as possible, the company said."After commencement of operation of the project, Trans Mountain will continue cleanup, reclamation, road and civil work."The company had previously said it would complete the work in April. .Trans Mountain, which was bought by the federal government in 2018, is Canada's only oil outlet to the West Coast. The expansion will improve the line’s capacity by 590,000 barrels per day to a total of 890,000 barrels per day, improving access to export markets for Canadian crude by a corresponding amount.The federal government bought the pipeline in 2018 for $4.5 billion to ensure the expansion was completed after previous owner Kinder Morgan Canada threatened to scrap the project in the face of regulatory hurdles.The project's $34-billion price tag has increased almost five fold from a 2017 estimate of $7.4 billion, with the company blaming "extraordinary" factors including indigenous accommodations, extreme weather and the COVID-19 pandemic.
