Canada greenlights Enbridge gas pipeline expansion in test of Carney approval process 

By Amanda Stephenson

CALGARY, April 24 (Reuters) – Canada has approved a C$4 billion ($2.93 billion) expansion of Enbridge’s Westcoast natural gas pipeline system in British Columbia, the first major pipeline project to get the go-ahead under Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Carney, elected last year on a platform to grow the economy to defend it against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, has pledged to speed permitting times for major resource projects in a country where construction has often been slowed by regulatory and legal challenges.

Enbridge has been developing its Sunrise Expansion project, which will add 300 million cubic feet per day of natural gas capacity in B.C., since 2022, and applied for federal regulatory approval two years ago.

FASTER APPROVAL

Matthew Akman, the company’s president of gas transmission and midstream, said on Friday Enbridge noted faster approval for this project than for past ones.

“The regulated and pre-established decision timelines all occurred as anticipated. That’s not always been the case in Canada,” Akman told reporters.

Still, Akman said Canada must move even faster if it wants to compete globally in energy export and liquefied natural gas projects. 

Enbridge will build Sunrise to meet rising B.C. natural gas demand, including from LNG projects such as Woodfibre, which is under construction on the Pacific coast and of which Enbridge owns 30%.

“From our experience, because we do these things on both sides of the border, the U.S. is moving faster,” Akman said, adding Enbridge thinks Canada’s LNG potential could support construction of two or three more large gas pipelines to the Pacific coast.

Enbridge’s Westcoast natural gas pipeline system stretches 2,900 kilometers (1,802 miles) from northeast British Columbia to the Canada-U.S. border, with a current capacity of 3.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.

The expansion will involve constructing new pipeline segments along the existing system, additional gas compression capacity and upgrades and changes to existing facilities. 

Construction is scheduled to begin in July, with a targeted in-service date in late 2028.

Last May, Enbridge said it would sell a 12.5% stake in the Westcoast pipeline to Stonlasec8 Indigenous Alliance for C$715 million, the first deal to include financing from a new federal loan program aimed at helping Indigenous groups own parts of resource projects.

Those same Indigenous groups will have the option to acquire a stake in the pipeline expansion, Akman said.

($1 = 1.3671 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary; additional reporting by Katha Kalia, Katharine Jackson and Swati Verma; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Jonathan Ananda, Rod Nickel)