West Coast Pipeline Project Labeled Conditional Bet
A recent announcement by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has sparked debate over the West Coast pipeline project, a $35.2 to $43.7 billion endeavor that aims to transport one million barrels of oil per day from Bruderheim, Alberta, to Roberts Bank, south of Vancouver.
Bryan Gould, a conventional oil company owner in Calgary, analyzed the project's value and found it to be a 'conditional bet' being touted as a commercial certainty. He argues that the difference between these two concepts is how a country loses its ability to reason with itself.
The pipeline would travel 1,250 kilometers along the existing Trans Mountain corridor and would be led by the federally owned Trans Mountain Corporation. Gould points out that the project's proponents have largely declined to publish the basic arithmetic of Canadian oil pricing, tolls, and the pipeline's economics.