Kinder Morgan Trans-Mountain Pipeline System

He didn't understand here.

The federal government of the past was clearly frustrated by some of Alberta's reactions to certain things like the building of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, where I think you and me, we'd look at it and say, yeah, that was seen by most Albertans of, thank you, Ottawa, clean up your mess.

Nobody's making pipelines right now.

And I think for a lot of the circle around Justin Trudeau, Maybe even the broader circles in Eastern Canada, it was like, why are you so mad? We bought you a pipeline.

Why would we spend a year consulting on something that's already done?

And we have today the Trans Mountain Pipeline generating close to $3 billion a year in free cash flow for Canadians.

So I feel pretty good.

The Trans Mountain expansion project has proven to be a very good investment for Canadians, and I believe this project will be as well.

I mean, and I guess, which is something I want to talk to you a little bit about.

I mean, the taxpayer is still very much on the hook on a lot of this stuff, right? I mean, you know, even the building of the Pacific Link, I was reading just recently, hours ago about, you know, what Trans Mountain would have cost, but for, you know, if it had gone private and what the impact has been of it's going public.

Yes.

I mean, it's full.

So we talked a bit here about the Pacific Link.

This is what we have on the screen right now.

This is from Bruderheim, Alberta, near Edmonton, down to Roberts Bank, paralleling most, but not all, of the Trans Mountain expansion right-of-way.

Some new portions of right-of-way are outlined on this map.

Uh, we are in a very different world today.

We are in a world where the Trans Mountain Expansion, uh, Project was, was finished just a few years ago, uh, ramped up to full utilization much faster than, than people thought.

That pipeline is now fully contracted to the maximum extent allowed.

It's 90% of the, uh, utilization of that pipeline is fully contracted for 20 years by international buyers.

Um, I can tell you, uh, earlier this week, we had, uh, leaders of energy companies, uh, in Vancouver for the, uh, LNG2 announcement, and we had, uh, heads of the largest energy companies in Europe, uh, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, China.

All saying to us, uh, we would desperately like to take more oil off your west coast.

How quickly can you build that, that pipeline? Um, and we have today, uh, the Trans Mountain pipeline generating close to $3 billion a year in free cashflow, uh, for Canadians.

So I feel pretty good.

It's listed.

And what that does is it tells the people that would build this project, Trans Mountain and Pembina, that they now do the real heavy lifting of the work.

And you're familiar with a lot of this in terms of the detailed costing, lining up the equipment, lining up the work and all the other things that need to be done.

We'll do those in partnership with the province of Alberta, with the province of British Columbia, with indigenous groups, with environmental groups, to get all this information.

I mean, literally, that's what we'd look to line up.

And that's one thing that the project proponents are going to determine, right? When can they get the equipment in place? When can they get the workers in place in order to move that forward? Again, lots of things to be done, but a very, very clear decision taken today that this project's going to move forward.

With the previous pipeline, the Trans Mountain pipeline, now it operated in a very different capacity.

But it ran up against roadblocks at every turn, whether it's legal challenges.

Yeah, I guess what it means is this process where you put together a full proposal, meaning with the technical specs, the surveying done, the exact route, exactly which First Nations it would pass through, what the arrangements are, all of that stuff that, you know, in the past, a company like TransCanada or Kinder Morgan or Enbridge It would have put together in a detailed document and send before the regulator.

That part, the federal government, in conjunction with the province, the Trans Mountain, the Crown Corp, will conduct now.

This is a really pricey.

study and extensive consultation work that's required to put together an actual plan and no pipeline company on their own is willing to take that risk only to have a no at the very end of that process so what's happening now is trans canada is beginning this work with the hope that by next year which is pretty fast that we'll see a detailed plan and they'll even hold an open season which bid for companies to sign up for contracts to fill that pipeline before it's

I 100% believe it will be built, absolutely.

And I'm very sure that more private industry is going to come forward.

But I was just curious, just from my own curiosity about the Trans Mountain pipeline that government owns.

I was curious whether it makes money.

I guess what it means is this process where you put together a full proposal, meaning with the technical specs, the surveying done, the exact route, exactly which First Nations it would pass through, what the arrangements are, all of that stuff that, you know, in the past a company like Trans Canada or Kinder M- Morgan or Enbridge [clears throat] would have put together in a detailed document and send before the regulator.

That part, the federal government in conjunction with the province via Trans Mountain, the Crown Corp, will conduct now.

Mm-hmm.

This is the really pricey study and expensive consultation work that's required to put together an actual plan, and no pipeline company on their own is willing to take that risk, only to have a no at the very end of that process.

I won- I do wonder about, I mean that, that's an interesting argument, like, you know, the rules changed, uh, the, the private companies got out.

But on the other side, even without the rule changes, you know, we used to build these things, these massive projects, uh, through Crown corporations, right? Petro-Canada, um, TMX ended up being [laughs] Trans Mountain ended up being owned by the Canadian people.

Because it's a public resource and the public should have the benefit of the resource, what do you think about that argument?

We get the benefit of the resource anyway.