en.Wedoany.com Reported - Alberta has submitted an 89-page planning document to the British Columbia Major Projects Office, proposing the construction of a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) export terminal at Roberts Bank, south of Vancouver, to serve the crude oil export needs of a second West Coast pipeline. The plan covers 260 hectares, with a core storage yard comprising 15 storage units with a total capacity of 6.5 million barrels of crude oil, connected via a 5-kilometer causeway to a two-berth offshore loading facility designed to accommodate VLCCs.
A VLCC is approximately 330 meters long and can carry up to 2 million barrels of crude oil per voyage, roughly three times the capacity of the medium-sized Aframax tankers (carrying about 600,000 barrels) currently loaded at the Burnaby terminal. Richard Masson, former CEO of the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission, stated that due to insufficient water depth in Burnaby, some partially loaded vessels must transfer cargo to larger ships on the U.S. West Coast, resulting in an inefficient and costly system. Loading VLCCs directly at Roberts Bank would eliminate transshipment, reducing ocean transport costs to $1 to $2 per barrel, compared to $4 to $5 per barrel when using smaller vessels.
The controlling water depth at existing berths in Roberts Bank is approximately 19 to 22 meters, while a fully loaded VLCC typically has a draft of about 20 meters, placing it within a marginally operable range. Ken Veldman, former strategic advisor to the Prince Rupert Port Authority, noted that constructing a similar facility on a river delta would face ongoing maintenance dredging challenges to address seabed reshaping caused by sediment from the lower Fraser River. The Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project evaluated the Roberts Bank option over a decade ago but ultimately chose to remain in Burnaby due to significantly higher costs (estimated at an additional $1.2 billion), engineering challenges, and environmentally sensitive coastal habitats.
Alberta's document acknowledges that many key decisions remain unresolved, with the final route to be determined through consultation with Indigenous communities, landowners, and local governments. Haley Hodgson, spokesperson for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, stated that Alberta's proposal is still at a conceptual stage and that relevant details have not yet been provided to them. If this pipeline, along with three other expansion proposals announced over the past year, proceeds smoothly, it could add over 2 million barrels per day of new crude oil export capacity for Canada.
