CALGARY — Trans Mountain’s chief executive officer says the company’s pipeline system will be running at capacity in June, in order to boost volume on the federally owned line amid talks of a new oil export pipeline in Alberta to the West Coast. According to The Globe and Mail, CEO Mark Maki has said the surge in volume is driven by growing oil production in Alberta, limited spare capacity on export pipeline and increased global demand in response to the Iran conflict. Trans Mountain Corp is currently planning a series of optimization projects to boost the system’s capacity by roughly 34%, or 300,000 barrels a day (bpd). "When's the best time to sell a restaurant? When it's full," Maki said in an interview, arguing that completing the expansion work would make the asset significantly more valuable to potential buyers.With the massive bump in volume set to be added to the system, Maki believes now “isn’t the right time” to try and sell it. “If you try to sell it today, someone’s going to go, ‘Well, I don’t believe you,’ and so they’re going to discount it.” .Trans Mountain looks to expand to 1.2 million bpd as Canadians support more pipelines.BC’s government supports the proposed optimization project, marking a notable shift from the province’s opposition to the original Trans Mountain expansion due to environmental risks such as tanker traffic along the coast. BC Energy Minister Adrian Dix has encourage BC Hydro to work with Trans Mountain on the expansion while the province has also approved dredging of the Second Narrows waterway to allow tankers loading at Trans Mountain’s Burnaby marine terminal to carry larger volumes of oil. However, the BC government still does not support a new pipeline to the province’s northwest coast, which is being championed by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Maki has suggested a pipeline to the southern corridor of BC may be a more viable route given the longstanding opposition from multiple Northern BC communities. He said Trans Mountain has met recently with representatives from those First Nations and acknowledged concerns over the possibility of spills remain a major obstacle to new projects. “It’s going to be hard, I think, to get them to a point where they’re comfortable with the risk, no matter how much you can take it out of the equation,” Maki said.“No one wants to have a spill, a leak or anything else, but there’s a chance it can happen, and they don’t even want to deal with the chance. They make that absolutely crystal clear when they’re talking.”While many in the energy sector remain skeptical about whether another pipeline will be built, Maki remains optimistic, arguing global demand isn’t going anywhere and the project is too critical to let it fall by the wayside.
