Company holds 'open season' in an effort to find out if there's enough interest from potential clients to justify shipping more oil through Burnaby

Kinder Morgan is testing the waters for an expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which would mean more tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet.

The pipeline runs oil from Alberta to Burnaby, home to the Westridge Marine Terminal, which ships oil abroad. The 1,150-kilometre line is already twinned in some areas, but to meet rising demand, the company would have to twin more sections to increase shipping capacity. The pipeline's maximum capacity is now at 300,000 barrels a day, but the most it could handle if fully expanded is up to 700,000 barrels.

Kinder Morgan is holding an "open season" from Oct. 20 to Jan. 19, to figure out if shipping customers will commit to using an expanded pipeline.

"In some aspects, it is like a request for proposals," said Kinder Morgan spokesperson Lexa Hobenshield. "We propose a package of terms for a potential expansion project and solicit bids from potential customers for contracting capacity on the project. We've been discussing the possibility of expansion for some time now, and this process is meant to formalize commitments from potential customers."

Hobenshield said the open season is not a project announcement, but it is "an important step in moving towards an expansion project."

"We have always said that we would not proceed with a project unless we had the commercial support of customers," she said. "If we have support, our next step will be to initiate a thorough and comprehensive consultation process, environmental and socio-economic assessments, etc. - to develop a regulatory application."

Hobenshield said there are indicators that the open season will be successful.

"The most important being that we have been oversubscribed on a month-to-month basis for many months running," she added.

Wilderness Committee spokesperson Ben West took issue with the open season and the possibility of expansion, saying it will mean more oil tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet and greater risks of an oil spill for Burnaby.

"The thing I find strange is they are not talking to the general public. They are just asking oil companies," West said. "They continue to do all of this without public consultation."

Ninety per cent of the gasoline in the Lower Mainland comes from oil products shipped via the pipeline, but West said an expansion would mean more unrefined products going overseas rather than increased local refining capacity.

According to the oil industry, pipelines are safer than trains, trucks and tankers for transporting oil, but that still doesn't it well with West.

"You are talking about a whole bunch of bad ways of moving poison around," he said, adding we need to move away from our dependence on fossil fuels given the threat of climate change.

Hobenshield said the advantages of expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline are many.

"The project has an existing footprint, capacity can be added incrementally, which makes it cost effective. We have operating expertise with existing relationships along the pipeline and excellent response capability," she said.

Photo: Workers attempt to clean up Gulf oil spill in USA