{"id":625781,"date":"2026-04-24T15:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T15:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/625781\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T15:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T15:23:12","slug":"federal-government-approves-4b-natural-gas-pipeline-expansion-in-b-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/625781\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal government approves $4B natural gas pipeline expansion in B.C."},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal government has approved the Sunrise Expansion Program, a $4-billion project in British Columbia, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson<\/a> said Friday.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The project, proposed by Enbridge, is a 139-kilometre expansion of B.C.\u2019s current natural gas<\/a> pipeline network and will add up to 300 million cubic feet of liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity to the network, Hodgson said.
The expansion project will extend the pipeline, sending natural gas all the way down to the U.S. border and is estimated by the government to generate more than $700 million in federal and provincial tax revenue.<\/p>\n

Enbridge\u2019s Westcoast natural gas\u00a0pipeline\u00a0system stretches 2,900 kilometers (1,802 miles) from northeast British Columbia to the Canada-U.S. border, with a total current capacity of 3.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project will enable us to heat more homes, businesses, hospitals and schools while bolstering British Columbian industry, including for LNG, and creating thousands of jobs,\u201d Hodgson said.<\/p>\n

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Construction on the project is set to begin this summer, the ministry said.<\/p>\n

The pipeline is \u201cgood news\u201d for the province\u2019s economy, B.C. Premier David Eby said.<\/p>\n

\u201cApproval of the Sunrise natural gas expansion project is good news for British Columbian jobs. It will also strengthen B.C.\u2019s role as an engine for a more independent Canadian economy \u2013 delivering affordable energy people rely on and powering growth in major industries,\u201d Eby said.<\/p>\n

The Sunrise Expansion Program is expected to contribute more than $3 billion to Canada\u2019s economy and involve the hiring of about 2,500 workers from local communities and Indigenous groups during construction, Enbridge said.<\/p>\n

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The expansion will include constructing new pipeline segments along the existing system, additional natural gas compression capacity and upgrades and modifications to existing facilities.<\/p>\n

Shares of the company rose 1.5 per cent on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe multi-billion dollar Sunrise Expansion Program is a shovel-ready, critical natural gas infrastructure project that supports the advancement of Canada\u2019s energy superpower ambitions,\u201d Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel said Friday.<\/p>\n

Construction on the expansion project is scheduled to begin in July 2026, with a targeted in-service date in late 2028.<\/p>\n

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In May 2025, Enbridge said it would sell a 12.5 per cent stake in the Westcoast pipeline to Stonlasec8 Indigenous Alliance for $715 million, the first deal to include financing from a new federal loan program aimed at helping Indigenous groups own parts of resource projects.<\/p>\n

\u2014 with files from Reuters<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government has approved the Sunrise Expansion Program, a $4-billion project in British Columbia, Energy and Natural…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,46,43,4740,44,83096,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-625781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-canada","tag-economy","tag-headlines","tag-natural-gas","tag-news","tag-tim-hodgson","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}