The president of Trans Mountain says rail traffic will decrease essentially overnight when the pipeline expansion comes online.
Ian Anderson points out that day is still several years away – but he doesn’t expect the drop in rail traffic would be permanent.
“You would see a drop I think in rail, fairly dramatically and quickly as these new pipes come on, but I don’t think it goes away forever. Because infrastructure has been built, rail sidings have been built, cars have been acquired. It’ll save part of the fabric of transportation, but not as much hopefully as pipes come on,” he says. “It’s provided a flexibility niche for some of the producers to access markets. There’s always disruptions in the supply logistics that require oil to go to different markets at different times, and (rail) provides some felxibility that pipelines don’t.”
Anderson says right now pipes transporting oil from Alberta are all full, and he points out oil by rail has increased significantly in the past three-to-five years.
The pipeline expansion is now expected to be finished in 2022; Anderson points out the original in-service date was 2017.
– with files from Shane Woodford