(Calgary) The Crown corporation behind the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion says it may not complete the project until December 2024 if a regulator does not approve its request to deviate from its route.

Trans Mountain Corporation argues that the new schedule represents a worst-case scenario, and could add nearly $86 million in cost overruns to the project’s final price.

Trans Mountain had hoped to put the pipeline into service in early 2024, but ran into technical difficulties with drilling a tunnel in British Columbia.

It wishes to slightly modify the route of a 1.3 kilometer section of pipeline, as well as the method of construction.

But it faces opposition from the Stk’emlupsemc te Secwepemc nation, whose traditional territory crosses the pipeline, and which had accepted the route and construction method initially proposed.

The Canada Energy Regulator will hear arguments from Trans Mountain and the First Nation at a hearing in Calgary next week.