Enbridge Drops the Westcoast Connector Pipeline

Enbridge says it will not develop the Westcoast Connector Gas Transmission line, one of several pipelines previously slated for northern B.C., after its environmental certificate expired last week.

In an email to The Tyee, the energy company confirmed that it has no plans to proceed with the project.

It’s the first time an environmental assessment certificate for a pipeline project in B.C. has expired, B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office confirmed with The Tyee.

The Westcoast Connector received provincial approval in 2014 to carry gas from northeast B.C. to a liquefaction facility on the coast for overseas shipping.

The project was one of three undeveloped pipelines that had provincial approval to proceed, two of them owned by the Calgary-based oil and gas giant. Enbridge told The Tyee it has not made a final investment decision on its second permitted project, the Pacific Trails Pipeline.

“We’ve been discussing its potential development with Indigenous groups and prospective commercial partners,” Enbridge spokesperson Jesse Semko wrote in an email to The Tyee. “These conversations are in the very early stages, far in advance of active development.”

Pacific Trails, which was approved in 2008 but has not been actively under construction for at least five years, is considered “substantially started” by the province. This designation locks in its environmental certificate indefinitely. If completed, the Pacific Trails Pipeline would follow a similar route to the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which finished construction last year after years of opposition from hereditary leaders with the Wet’suwet’en Nation.

Westcoast Connector’s demise comes as tensions rise over the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission line, which began construction in August.

PRGT’s environmental certificate also expired last week and the company spent the last few months initiating construction in the hopes of gaining a substantially started designation.

The early construction was located on Nisga’a territory. The Nisga’a partnered with Texas-based Western LNG earlier this year to buy the project from TC Energy, the Calgary-based energy company that built Coastal GasLink.

The partners are also proposing to build Ksi Lisims LNG, a floating LNG export terminal that would also be located on Nisga’a territory north of Prince Rupert. Last year, Ksi Lisims signed an agreement with PRGT, leaving Westcoast Connector without a dedicated export facility.

Both the PRGT and the Westcoast Connector faced opposition from some local residents, First Nations and environment groups, who have called on the province to complete new environmental assessments, pointing to changes in B.C.’s Indigenous rights and environmental legislation over the past decade.

B.C. overhauled the permitting process in 2018 when it introduced a new Environmental Assessment Act, which strengthened obligations around public engagement and Indigenous consultation on proposed resource development projects. The province also passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act in 2019, further enforcing the need to consult First Nations.

Under the current Environmental Assessment Act, certificates are granted for five years and companies can apply to receive one five-year extension. Both pipeline projects were permitted in 2014 and had until late November to substantially start construction or face losing their environmental certificates or undergoing the new environmental assessment process, which would be far more onerous.

In December 2022, Enbridge applied to the EAO for an additional extension for Westcoast Connector, which would have taken the deadline for beginning construction to late 2029.

Approval would have required a variance to B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Act, the company noted in making the request.

Naxginkw Tara Marsden, wilp sustainability director for the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, said the Gitanyow wrote to the province last year, opposing Enbridge’s application to extend the Westcoast Connector certificate.

“They're very similar reasons to what we're seeing with PRGT in terms of its out-of-date authorizations, shifting baseline, climate change, change in UNDRIP recognition,” she said. “We know that the province doesn’t like to reject things, so they quietly asked them to rescind that application for a variance of the act.”

Enbridge withdrew its application for an extension in May 2023.

In an email to The Tyee, an EAO spokesperson confirmed that Westcoast Connector’s environmental certificate expired on Nov. 25 and said that, a year prior, the office sent a letter to the company reminding it of the impending deadline. On Nov. 22, 2024, the company confirmed the pipeline project is not substantially started, it said.

“The EAO is in the process of notifying First Nations and a final letter from the EAO and public announcement will be posted on to the EAO’s project website in the near future,” the spokesperson wrote.

A decision on whether to grant PRGT’s request for a substantially started designation could take up to six months, the EAO said.

Marsden called on the B.C. government to be more transparent in its decision making, both about the PRGT and the Westcoast Connector.