Brawl over expansion of Trans Mountain pipeline making project 'untenable,' says CEO

The CEO of Kinder Morgan Canada says internal Canadian political squabbles over the future of the Trans Mountain pipeline are signalling that the project may be "untenable."

"It's become clear this particular investment may be untenable for a private party to undertake," Steve Kean, Kinder Morgan Canada's CEO, said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday.

"The events of the last ten days have confirmed those views."

Kean said that the significant differences between the the B.C. government — which is against the pipeline — and the Alberta and federal governments, which support it, are "outside of our ability to resolve." As a result, he said, the company will continue stakeholder discussions and see what happens between now and the May 31 deadline the company set recently.

Political instability around the pipeline expansion project prompted Kinder Morgan to suspend all non-essential spending on the project last week. The company has given the federal government until May 31 to deliver concrete assurances that the expanded line will get built. 

Kean said the suspension of spending will stand and that "under the current conditions, we would not be putting additional KML capital at risk."

Kean did say, however, that the dispute over the pipeline expansion would not dissuade his company from investing in Canada.

"We also said there's no read-through from this in terms of our willingness to invest in Canada," he said.

"We have invested in Canada, in British Columbia as well as Alberta, and we expect to continue to investing."