The Dubai Angel, a tanker originating from South Korea, departs from the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby on May 22.Alison Boulier/The Globe and Mail
An Aframax tanker is heading its way to China from British Columbia after becoming the first vessel to load heavy oil from the newly expanded Trans Mountain pipeline system.
About three hours before sunset on Wednesday, the tanker named Dubai Angel, carrying diluted bitumen, began to depart from the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby. Calgary-based Suncor Energy Inc. SU-T chartered the tanker, which is transporting 550,000 barrels of Access Western Blend, according to Kpler, a provider of real-time global data and analytics.
With the $34-billion Trans Mountain expansion (TMX) project, which links crude and refined products from Alberta’s oil sands to the B.C. coast, up and running since May 1, the capacity for tanker traffic is forecast to eventually increase sevenfold.
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Suncor and Trans Mountain did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday. During a conference call earlier this month, Suncor said it would be leasing tankers for loading oil from TMX.
Suncor and the nine other petroleum companies on the TMX system have committed to take about 80 per cent of the capacity under deals lasting 15 to 20 years. With the addition of the pipeline system’s new capacity of 590,000 barrels a day of heavy crude, TMX will be able to handle a total of more than 890,000 barrels a day of oil and refined products.
Kinder Morgan Canada Inc. sold the Trans Mountain project, including its Burnaby marine terminal and plans for expanding the pipeline, to the federal government for $4.5-billion in 2018. Six years and tens of billions of dollars in cost overruns later, the newly built pipeline began commercial operations this month, expanding the overall capacity. The original pipeline from the Edmonton area to Burnaby opened in 1954.
The Dubai Angel was built in South Korea in 2010 and is now operated by Dubai-based Emarat Maritime. The tanker took about two hours to make its way through Burrard Inlet, crossing under three bridges in the heart of the Port of Vancouver’s inner harbour. The tanker started out at a slow pace of one knot at Westridge and gradually increased its speed to eight knots by the time it went under the Lions Gate Bridge.
The Prime Minister’s Office and the federal Finance Department did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday about the historic voyage of the Dubai Angel.
The Aframax tanker measures 250 metres in length and sails under the flag of the Marshall Islands, according to MarineTraffic, a ship-tracking and maritime-analytics provider. On Thursday, the tanker wound its way through the Georgia Strait and then entered the open waters of the Pacific Ocean, with an arrival date by June 13 scheduled at the Port of Laizhou in China.
TMX forecasts tanker traffic capacity will gradually rise to potentially reach an average of 34 vessels per month, compared with the current five per month. The actual number of tankers departing from Westridge was about two per month in recent years, according to a study by David Huntley, a Burnaby resident and professor emeritus of physics at Simon Fraser University.
The actual number of tankers in future will depend on oil economics and could be fewer than 20 per month because of the limited availability of Aframax vessels on the West Coast of North America, industry experts say.
A recent analysis by Poten & Partners said it is difficult to predict how much heavy oil from TMX will be exported and whether it would end up at destinations such as Asia or California.
Peter McCartney, a climate campaigner at the Wilderness Committee, said environmental groups are concerned about the risk of oil spills along Burrard Inlet and the Gulf Islands, given the increased tanker traffic.
But the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority said it will be ensuring the safe and efficient movement of ships.
“We are continuously looking at ways to enhance our vessel traffic management procedures. This includes working in collaboration with partner agencies, including the Pacific Pilotage Authority and Canadian Coast Guard,” the port authority said in a statement.
Following protocols on Wednesday, two harbour pilots boarded the Dubai Angel at Westridge, where there were three tugboats that initially escorted the ship. The vessel then made its way under the Second Narrows Rail Bridge, Ironworkers Memorial Bridge and, lastly, the Lions Gate Bridge.
Aframax ships deployed at Westridge are restricted to transit during daylight hours under the first two bridges. If the Dubai Angel didn’t set sail early on Wednesday evening, it would have had to wait until Thursday morning.
Another Aframax tanker, the Aqualeader, was docked at one of Westridge’s three berths on Thursday.