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Canadian Prime Minister Approves Kinder Morgan Pipeline Expansion

Craig McCulloch
The existing Kinder Morgan pipeline through the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has given conditional approval to a controversial expansion of the pipeline.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has approved a controversial proposal to increase the capacity of a pipeline to suburban Vancouver. It has the potential to dramatically increase the amount of oil tankers passing through the Puget Sound area.

The expanded pipeline is suppose to bring 900,000 barrels of crude oil a day from neighboring Alberta to a terminal on Burrard Inlet. This is 70,000 more than Keystone XL.

This will result in an increase from five oil tankers a month to 34. These ships, laden with crude oil, will then travel through Vancouver Harbor, San Juan Islands, Olympic Peninsula and the rest of Puget Sound, on route to China.

The proposed expansion has already caused massive protests from opponents and First Nations, who are vowing to do everything to stop it.

The Vancouver Board of Trade is among the groups supporting the conditional approval, saying it will be good for the local economy.

Kinder Morgan, which is based in Texas, hopes to have the expansion completed in the fall of 2019.