Canada faces US$15B loss on oil pipeline, Morningstar says

Canadian taxpayers may end up taking a loss of $20 billion (nearly US$15 billion) on the government-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline after costs to expand it skyrocketed, according to Morningstar.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government will probably get no more than $15 billion when it goes to sell Trans Mountain — and possibly much less, Morningstar analyst Stephen Ellis said in an interview. 

The government paid Kinder Morgan Inc. $4.5 billion for the system in 2018 after the midstream company threatened to cancel plans to nearly triple its capacity to 890,000 barrels a day. The cost of that project has soared to about $31 billion because of a range of factors including supply-chain challenges. 

“At a $31 billion investment cost, no way the pipeline is going to recover costs,” Ellis said.