The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that it does not take a lot of imagination to envision what a two-year delay to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX) could mean for the Canadian oil industry. Postmedia's Chris Varcoe writes that the spectre of a potential two-year delay in getting the $30.9-billion project finished -- as Trans Mountain recently warned could be a worst-case scenario -- would be negative news for producers who have been waiting a decade to see the project built. The Alberta government, which will benefit from increased oil production and more royalties tied to the incremental transportation capacity, would also feel the pinch. For many Albertans who thought the Trans Mountain construction story was quickly coming to an end, that assumption may have been premature. Is there at least one more plot twist left in this long-running saga? Mr. Varcoe says that expansion of the existing 1,150-kilometre oil pipeline, which runs from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C., has already turned into an epic slog. The initial regulatory application to expand the existing pipeline was filed in 2013 and approved three years later. The expansion will almost triple the pipeline's capacity to 890,000 barrels a day.
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