Tyler Hooper's List: BC pipelines

• The City of Burnaby has formally requested the National Energy Board reject the proposed expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline due to a lack of sufficient information.
• On Dec. 16, 2013, Kinder Morgan submitted an application to the NEB to expand the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which would almost triple oil ­capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day in pipelines running from the Alberta oilsands to the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby. As part of the public hearing process, the city applied for intervenor status on Feb. 4 to relay its opposition to the $5.4-billion project.
• “They seem to assume that the city will be able to manage these emergencies,” Corrigan said. “In fact, however, the city has neither the capacity to nor information on how to respond to such emergencies for these new facilities.”

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• A B.C. media mogul says he has found the $25 billion he needs to build a crude oil refinery in Kitimat, but he had to raise more than $6 billion in Canada after Chinese investors backpedalled on the deal.
• The owner of Black Press Group would not say where the $6 billion was coming from
• The plant, to be built north of Kitimat, would refine oil from the Alberta oilsands shipped either by pipeline or rail.

• Environmental groups and members of Canada's First Nations have expressed concern about a pipeline moving crude oil across ecologically sensitive northern B.C.

   

  But Black says it will be easier to sell the oil project to First Nations communities than Enbridge's Northern Gateway because his refinery will keep bitumen out of tankers off B.C.'s coast.

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• The Aquilini family, which owns the Vancouver Canucks, said it will underwrite the estimated $18 billion pipeline proposal as long as it gets support of all First Nations through whose territory the pipeline would travel

• The Aquilini Group has been on a tear lately, expanding its relations with First Nations groups. Last week it announced it had formed a three-way partnership with the Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations to develop the 16-hectare Willingdon lands in Burnaby. It is also has residential housing developments with the Tsawwassen First Nation and the Tsleil-Waututh, and has built housing for Musqueam.

  The Aquilini Group has even enlisted the power of its Vancouver Canucks hockey team to boost aboriginal relations. Last year it sent players, coaching staff and management to Prince Rupert, near where Eagle Spirit is based, to participate in a traditional drum welcome of the Tsimshian First Nation, as well as meet with fans. They then went to the Haida Gwaii First Nations community at Old Masset, where they participated in a longhouse traditional welcoming ceremony.

  This is the third oil industry-related proposal to emerge since Enbridge said it wanted to build a $6-billion heavy bitumen pipeline from the Edmonton area to Kitimat. Kinder Morgan has since filed a proposal with the National Energy Board to build a twinned pipeline along its southern route to Vancouver, and newspaper mogul David Black has floated the idea of building a $13-billion oil refinery at Kitimat to process oil before shipping overseas.