The former chief executive of Alberta Investment Management Corporation said he expects the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project will ultimately be built, but the federal and Alberta governments will likely need to take financial stakes in it first.
Leo de Bever, now chairman of Nauticol Energy, told BNN Bloomberg on Thursday that the Trudeau government has to take away some of Kinder Morgan’s risks if it wants the $7.4-billion project to proceed.
“The risk is probably too high for Kinder Morgan to take on its own,” de Bever said.
De Bever’s comments come days ahead of Kinder Morgan’s May 31 deadline for assurances that it can build the Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C. expansion project.
Last month, Kinder Morgan halted all non-essential spending on Trans Mountain as the Houston-based company faced mounting opposition from B.C. Premier John Horgan, environmentalists and protestors.
“These deadlines are always less dead than you think,” de Bever said.
“Ultimately, this thing will be built but we may go through a lot of ups and down before we get there.”
De Bever added that the federal government needs to exercise more leadership on Trans Mountain.
“We’re not acting like a country, we’re acting like a bunch of provinces,” he said.
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