The pipeline through the Lakes District, the midsection that connects the Peace-country natural gas basis with the Pacific coast, is nearly finished.
In an update posted by the project’s parent company, Coast GasLink (CGL), a subsidiary of TC Energy, the entire line is more than 80 per cent complete, and 2023 will be the final year of construction.
“Some of the most notable achievements include the 100 per cent pipe install in Sections 1, Dawson Creek to approximately Brûlé Mine and 4 about Slender Lake to about Circum Lake north of Vanderhoof, the completion of our Wilde Lake compressor station and the commencement of pipe install at Cable Crane Hill – which has reached 45 per cent pipe install ahead of schedule,” said CGL’s statement. “This year, we also safely and successfully completed nine out of 10 major watercourse crossings.
“To date, our team has installed nearly 490 km of pipe across the 670-kilometer route, and steady progress is made each day. Overall, our team has spent more than 38 million hours working on this project, with more than 6,000 women and men employed at our peak.”
CGL has parcelled the pipeline’s construction into eight construction sections, working simultaneously. Each one is overseen by a primary contractor that handles that area’s construction needs.
There are three sections that impact the Lakes District.
Section 5 runs north of Fraser Lake and crosses Highway 97 near Endako, then runs just south of the highway towards a spot just north of Tchesinkut and Tercer Lakes. The primary contractor is Nadleh-Macro with a workforce of 480 staying at Little Rock Lake Lodge near Fraser Lake. This 82 km section is 85 per cent finished.
Section 6 runs from the previous section on past Tchesinkut Lake, crosses Highway 35 about halfway between Francois Lake and Burns Lake, and carries on westward to a spot just north of the Parrott Lakes south of Houston. The primary contractor for this stint is Michels Canada, with a workforce of 608 staying at 7 Mile Lodge, slightly east of Highway 35. This 86 km section is 52 per cent finished.
A compressor station will be built near the junction of Sections 6 and 7.
Section 7 carries on across the Morice Owen Forest Service Road north of Nadina Mountain and crosses the Morice River on its way into the thick of the Coastal Mountain Range aiming for Kitimat. There are 1,229 workers under the O.J. Pipelines banner staying at Huckleberry Lodge. They are about 32 per cent complete their 77 kms of pipe.
CGL has stated they hope to be finished by late fall, 2023.
Once the project reaches tidewater at Kitimat, it will flow into a processing facility owned by LNG Canada that will convert the natural gas into liquid form and load it onto ships for the global energy market.