Coastal GasLink sees busy summer season ahead
Coastal GasLink (CGL), the 670-km natural gas pipeline that will feed the LNG Canada liquefaction terminal on BC’s northern coast, said June 29 it was looking ahead to a busy summer construction season, with as many as 6,000 workers expected during peak activity periods.
The 2.1bn ft3/day pipeline is now nearly 65% complete, CGL said in its June construction update, with two of eight stages showing 100% of pipe installed and testing and reclamation work getting underway. As of the end of May, 2,993 workers were on-site across the full right-of-way (ROW), while construction progress was estimated at 56% and overall progress – engineering, procurement and construction – was pegged at 64.2%.
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But work on the 77-km long Section 7, which crosses traditional territory of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation south of Houston, continues to lag well behind other spreads. Ongoing disputes with supporters of hereditary Wet’suwet’en chiefs who oppose the pipeline have slowed work, and while nearly 97% of the ROW and ancillary sites have been cleared, only 11% of the route has been graded and no pipe has yet been installed.
CGL recently hired a partnership of OJ Pipelines and three First Nations – Wet’suwet’en, Skin Tyee and Witset – to expedite work on Section 7 and has remobilised crews to Huckleberry Lodge ahead of the summer construction season.
In the westernmost Section 8, meanwhile, the first lengths of pipe have been transported up Cable Crane Hill using a pair of cranes installed there over the last two years. The two cranes, one rated at five tonnes and the other at 16 tonnes, are used to carry workers, pipe sections, excavators, drills and welding equipment nearly 700 metres up the steep hill.