(Montreal) New commercial loans have been released by the Canadian government to finance the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project in western Canada, the costs of which have been reassessed several times.
The new loan guarantees totaling C$2.75 billion to C$3 billion were approved at the end of July, but did not appear until Friday evening on the website of the Canadian public body Export Development Canada (EDC). .
This is the third time this year that EDC has released such loans to finance the pipeline expansion project, nationalized by the Trudeau government in 2018.
As of March, the project’s estimated cost is $30.9 billion, up from an estimated C$7.4 billion when the project began in 2017.
Last year, the costs of the pipeline expansion had already skyrocketed and the federal government announced a new loan guarantee of up to $10 billion.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) had estimated the same year that this project was a financial “loss” for Canada, its construction costing more than its value.
Long demanded by the Alberta oil industry but decried by environmentalists and indigenous communities in the neighboring province, British Columbia, the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline has caused much controversy in recent years.
The project involves doubling the line of the pipeline to triple its capacity to transport oil between the oil sands in the Alberta region and the Pacific coast for export purposes, in order to serve Asian markets in particular.
Convinced of the “national interest” of this project first proposed by the private sector, the government of Justin Trudeau bought it five years ago, in 2018, for 4.4 billion dollars, causing a lifting of shields among environmental groups.
The extension project, which has been delayed, should see the light of day in early 2024.
