But what happens at the end of the line may prove just as consequential.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like you\u2019re building a dock at the lake,\u201d said Ken Veldman, a senior strategic advisor with Prairie Sky Strategy who spent 13 years working for the Prince Rupert Port Authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to build some kind of infrastructure that gets you into the depth of the water that operationally makes sense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The province\u2019s 89-page submission<\/a> to the Major Projects Office sketches out what would effectively become Canada\u2019s first purpose-built Pacific crude export hub within the Delta, B.C. network of terminals.<\/p>\n It is no small feat.<\/p>\n Graphic Credit: Janice Nelson.<\/p>\n The vision begins with an industrial complex covering 260 hectares\u2014roughly two-thirds the size of Vancouver\u2019s Stanley Park\u2014anchored by a tank farm with 15 storage units altogether capable of holding 6.5 million barrels of crude. From there, pipelines would feed a five-kilometre causeway to an offshore loading facility with two berths designed to accommodate \u201cvery large crude carriers,\u201d or VLCCs.<\/p>\n If approved, the pipeline would arrive alongside the already greenlit Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion<\/a>, a three-berth project expected to begin operating in the mid-2030s. That massive project, which has undergone its own lengthy regulatory process<\/a>, is expected to boost the Port of Vancouver\u2019s container capacity by up to 50 percent and unlock $100 billion<\/a> in annual trade.<\/p>\n Given the aggressive timeline for Alberta\u2019s pipeline plan, with construction expected to commence<\/a> by as early as 2027 and oil flowing a few years later, it\u2019s unclear how the addition of an oil terminal would affect the planning and procurement<\/a> currently in the works.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to keep in mind that these are two separate projects,\u201d said Haley Hodgson, spokesperson for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.<\/p>\n \u201cAlberta\u2019s proposal is still at a conceptual stage, and details regarding route and infrastructure have not been provided to us.\u201d<\/p>\n What are VLCCs?<\/p>\n Also known as supertankers, VLCCs are among the largest ships ever built.<\/p>\n Stretching roughly 330 metres\u2014longer than three football fields laid end to end\u2014these floating giants can carry up to two million barrels of crude in a single voyage. That\u2019s around three times the amount transported by the mid-sized Aframax tankers that currently load at Trans Mountain\u2019s Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby.<\/p>\n i<\/p>\n A view of the Grace 1 supertanker with the name removed is seen in the British territory of Gibraltar, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2019. Marcos Moreno\/AP Photo.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, the ships are in the range of 600,000 barrels, which are not fully loaded because of the draft issues,\u201d said Richard Masson, former CEO of the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission.<\/p>\n In shipping, \u201cdraft\u201d refers to how deep a vessel sits in the water. The more oil a tanker carries, the deeper its hull sinks. Because Burnaby lacks sufficient water depth, some partially loaded ships must transfer their cargo to larger vessels off the U.S. West Coast before continuing across the Pacific.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not a very efficient system,\u201d said Masson. \u201cIt costs a lot of money to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Loading VLCCs directly at Roberts Bank, which is about 50 kilometres southwest of Westridge, would eliminate the extra transfer, allowing Alberta bitumen to leave Canada in the most economical tankers used in global oil trade.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can get your oil onto those sorts of ships, it\u2019s very low transportation cost,\u201d said Jackie Forrest, executive director of the ARC Energy Research Institute.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can move your oil halfway around the world for a dollar or two a barrel,\u201d she added. \u201cIf you\u2019re in these smaller ships, suddenly it\u2019s $4 or $5 a barrel.\u201d<\/p>\n Can Roberts Bank handle ships that large?\u00a0<\/p>\n Existing berths at Roberts Bank have controlling depths<\/a> of about 19 to 22 metres, making them among the deepest commercial shipping facilities on Canada\u2019s West Coast.<\/p>\n A fully loaded VLCC typically draws about 20 metres of water<\/a>, or seven storeys below the waterline, putting Roberts Bank in the right range\u2014but only just.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you built the causeway an extra [kilometre or two] out, maybe you\u2019d get to deeper water. That\u2019s just a possibility,\u201d said Veldman.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Engineers must account for under-keel clearance<\/a>\u2014the safety margin between a ship\u2019s hull and the seabed\u2014as well as tides, wave action, tug operations, and berth design. Of course, the supertankers don\u2019t have to be fully loaded, either.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not all black and white,\u201d Veldman said. \u201cThere are operational solutions to these kinds of depths.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike the sheltered confines of Burrard Inlet farther north, Roberts Bank sits exposed to the Strait of Georgia. Any dredging would have to extend far beyond where the ships dock. Engineers would also need to ensure that a VLCC can safely approach and manoeuvre through waters where the seabed is continually being reshaped by sediment carried downstream from the Fraser River.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause you\u2019re on a river delta, that\u2019s consistently adding to the silt aspect of it,\u201d said Veldman. \u201cI would expect there would be a need for ongoing maintenance dredging in that case.\u201d<\/p>\n Why TMX chose Burnaby<\/p>\n During planning for the Trans Mountain expansion more than a decade ago, the pipeline company evaluated Roberts Bank as an alternative to expanding its longtime home terminal in Burnaby.<\/p>\n Engineering documents<\/a> filed with the former National Energy Board envisioned many of the same features now appearing in Alberta\u2019s current proposal. These included deep-water berths, a larger tank farm, additional utility infrastructure, and roughly seven kilometres of offshore trestle.<\/p>\n Ultimately, Trans Mountain chose to stick with Burnaby, citing the \u201csignificantly greater cost\u201d of the Roberts Bank option, which it estimated would add roughly $1.2 billion to the project.<\/p>\n But the price premium was only part of the story.<\/p>\n i<\/p>\n Rendering of the approved Roberts Bank Terminal 2 container expansion. Alberta\u2019s proposed oil export terminal would be a separate project. Credit: Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.<\/p>\n Trans Mountain also highlighted engineering challenges, environmentally sensitive coastal habitat, and the difficulty of fitting another major industrial project into one of Canada\u2019s busiest ports and transportation corridors\u2014on the doorstep of Metro Vancouver communities including Delta, Tsawwassen, and Richmond.<\/p>\n Many of those same considerations now loom over Alberta\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like you\u2019re sitting on the Prairies where you\u2019ve got lots of room to manoeuvre,\u201d said Veldman. \u201cRouting through the Lower Mainland? It\u2019s a pretty dense area. And the closer you get to Roberts Bank\u2026you\u2019re going to get into some sensitive areas, you\u2019re going to get into some wetlands.\u201d<\/p>\n Alberta\u2019s own submission acknowledges that many key decisions remain unresolved.<\/p>\n While the government identifies two possible paths west of Hope, B.C. that broadly follow the Trans Mountain right-of-way, it says the final alignment will continue to evolve through consultations with Indigenous communities, landowners, and local governments.<\/p>\n If it all comes together, this pipeline\u2014together with three other expansion proposals announced over the past year\u2014could add more than two million barrels per day of new export capacity for Canada.<\/p>\n For much of its length, the new southern route benefits from following an existing line already familiar to regulators. But the final approach into Roberts Bank\u2014and the proposed marine terminal itself\u2014remain the least-defined and least-understood parts of the vision.<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Fig1_ProposedWestCoastPipelineTerminal_map_v2.jpg\")
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