Trans Mountain Pipeline, the only pipeline that connects crude oil production areas in Alberta to Canada’s West Coast and the U.S. Pacific Northwest, has started to resume operations after a three-week shutdown. The pipeline closure — the longest in TMP’s 68-year history — began November 14 after major flooding exposed portions of the 300-Mb/d conduit, which also carries some refined products. Fortunately, Trans Mountain did not suffer any severe damage, breaks, or spills, and its operators were able to initiate a phased restart on December 5 at reduced pressures. Full service is expected to be restored soon. So what happens when a primary source of crude oil to five refineries — four in Washington state and one in British Columbia — is removed from service with little notice? In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the impacts.
Spanning 715 miles (1,150 kilometers) across rugged, mountainous terrain in British Columbia, the 300-Mb/d Trans Mountain Pipeline (TMP; solid green line in Figure 1) runs from its receipt point in Edmonton, AB, with additional small receipts entering via Kamloops, BC, before reaching the 55-Mb/d Parkland Corp.-owned Burnaby refinery (blue triangle; in Burnaby, BC), or for export from the Westridge docks (yellow star) about 2 miles (3 km) north of the refinery. The pipeline also transports crude oil to four refineries north of Seattle in Washington state through the Sumas export point via the 69-mile (111-km) Trans Mountain Puget Sound Pipeline (pink line). Until the 590-Mb/d Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX, dashed green line) — a new pipeline running roughly parallel to TMP — is completed in late 2022 or early 2023, the original pipeline remains the only one available for the movement of crude oil and refined products to British Columbia and Washington state.
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