Pipelines and West Coast Oil Tankers

Oil tanker Monterey anchored off Cates Park in North Vancouver, B.C. on Monday, July 5, 2010. Roland Priddle, an economist and former chairman of the National Energy Board, concluded in a report that banning oil tanker traffic from B.C.'s coastal waters would mean "forfeiting a nationally important opportunity."

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo , PNG

Last week, several stories related to pipelines made the news. One was an unexpected announcement by Kinder Morgan on their expansion plans for their TransMountain pipeline into B.C.'s Lower Mainland.

Oilsands debate shifts to west coast

By Stephen Ewart,

Calgary Herald

April 20, 2012

The focal point of the oilsands debate, which moved from the pastoral U.S. Midwest to the pristine B.C. wilderness, has now shifted to the decidedly troubled waters off Canada's West Coast in response to a plan to ship more oil through the port at Vancouver.

The contentious proposals to pipe oilsands bitumen to the B.C. coast are predicated on moving the oil on tankers to Pacific Rim energy markets.

Amid strident opposition to the 525,000-barrela-day Northern Gateway pipeline plan by Enbridge Inc., rival Kinder Morgan surprised people this month by announcing a similar-sized expansion to its 300,000-barrel-a-day TransMountain pipeline into B.C.'s Lower Mainland.

Retrofitting the TransMountain line could be complete by 2017.

Either way, the spectre of hundreds of super tankers - a.k.a. Very Large Crude Carriers, or VLCCs, to the industry - off the B.C. Coast at Vancouver or the Queen Charlotte Islands has made the prospect of oil spills the latest focus of oilsands opponents.

Admittedly, the stakes - both environmental and economic - are high.

Read more here