West Coast Oil Pipeline faces Fraser Valley geology challenges that delayed Trans Mountain

A new West Coast Oil Pipeline proposed by the Alberta government faces the same punishing geology in the Fraser Valley that turned the Trans Mountain expansion into a financial boondoggle, and Alberta has yet to prove it can navigate the challenge differently.

Alberta pegs the West Coast Oil Pipeline cost at no more than $43.7 billion. Ottawa is set to decide within six weeks whether to fast-track the project. But the company has not published a detailed route through the Fraser Valley's narrowest and most difficult section—the stretch where the valley walls close in on Highway 1, the Canadian National Railway line, and the Fraser River, leaving barely enough room for all three.

Trans Mountain discovered that geography the hard way. In June 2022, the company began boring a 2.3-kilometre tunnel through a mountainside east of Chilliwack to install a pipeline. The work required widening the hole and adapting pipe specifications. What was supposed to take months stretched into sixteen months—until April 2024—costing billions of dollars and nearly erasing the project's financing advantage.

Alberta says it can avoid Trans Mountain's problem by routing the pipeline on the northern side of the Fraser Valley instead of the southern side. But the proposal is vague. A close look at the alternative route reveals it faces well-established challenges and must tackle the same problematic geology—hard rock and narrow walls—that fouled Trans Mountain's budget.

B.C.'s government has watched and waited. While the province's opinion factored into the decision to route the pipeline to a southern terminus, B.C. has not yet had a say in how the pipeline will get there. Canada's Major Projects Office told The Tyee consultations will take place as the route is finalized.

The Fraser Valley lies along a northeast-southwest axis. Although Chilliwack and Abbotsford present flat, agricultural landscapes, the valley narrows dramatically toward its eastern end, with steep, nearly vertical mountainsides descending to a narrow, flat bottom. Running through this tight chute is perhaps the densest concentration of transportation and energy infrastructure in the province. Any pipeline must cross terrain that has already proved how expensive and time-consuming construction can become.