First Aframax marks beginning of TMX tanker traffic in the Salish Sea

An Aframax tanker is well on its way to China from Vancouver after becoming the first vessel to load heavy oil from the newly expanded Trans Mountain pipeline system. Aframax vessels, favoured by oil shipping companies, refer to ships that can carry between 80,000 and 120,000 deadweight tons and are 200 to 250 metres in length. 

Kinder Morgan Canada Inc. sold the Trans Mountain project to the federal government for $4.5 billion in 2018. Six years later, the price tag of the 590,000 b/d (barrels per day) pipeline has ballooned to $34 billion. With the addition of the pipeline system’s new capacity of 590,000 barrels a day of heavy crude, TMX will have the capacity to handle up to 890,000 barrels a day of oil and refined products. On April 30, the Canada Energy Regulator announced it had given TMX approval to operate. 

Some of the tankers carrying TMX crude oil will soon be traveling through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In early April, in anticipation of the official commencement of operations on May 1, shipowners moved more Aframax vessels into the area to meet the anticipated demand in Vancouver. 

On Wednesday, May 23, a tanker named Dubai Angel, operated by Dubai-based Emarat Maritime, was the first vessel to carry diluted bitumen from the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline in Burnaby. The tanker was chartered by Suncor Energy Inc. and is transporting 550,000 barrels of Access Western Blend crude. Access Western blend is a heavy, high Total Acid Number (TAN) dilbit (diluted bitumen product) produced by Canadian Resources and MEG energy. 

Heavy oil is more dense, more viscous than light oil and contains materials that can be used to make heavy products like asphalt. TAN refers to the acid number of the crude oil and how corrosive an oil product is. In 2023, Canada produced 4.9 million b/d of oil, 4.5 million b/d came from Alberta. 

It’s the heaviness of the TMX diluted bitumen (dilbit)—dilbit residue only has to share a similar density to spill waters to submerge if it isn’t cleared up right away—that has been worrying Garry Fletcher, board member of SeaChange and Friends of Ecological Reserves. 

“The Strait of Juan de Fuca, a critical passage for tanker traffic, demands a comprehensive understanding of the environmental conditions that pose risks to our coastal ecosystems,” said Fletcher. “The reality of environmental conditions alone can make clean-up impossible. Further, it places the responsibility on Transport Canada to be responsible to recognize this fact and take constructive steps to mitigate upcoming disasters.”

Four U.S. Coast Salish nations, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Tulalip Tribes, Lummi Nation, and Suquamish Tribe, came to Victoria  in 2018 to speak out against the project. In 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected an application from the Squamish Nation, the Coldwater Indian Band, and the Tsleil-Waututh Nation to stop the TMX expansion out of concerns for marine life around the Burrard Inlet. 

However at the time of the Canada Energy Regulator’s April 30 announcement of the pipeline’s approval to operate, Ray Cardinal, Indigenous chair of the Trans Mountain Indigenous Advisory and Monitoring Committee said, “The IAMC-TMX Indigenous Caucus will continue to work with federal regulators to oversee the Trans Mountain system, which is entering its operational phase to ensure the company complies with all the regulatory requirements and fulfills its obligations with the Indigenous Communities impacted by this project.” 

A letter directed on May 8 to Premier David Eby and signed by 18 individuals and representing 65 groups including District of Metchosin councillor Steve Gray, the Suzuki Foundation, Wilderness Committee, the Green Party of Canada, the Metchosin Climate Action Team, the View Royal Climate Coalition, and Friends of the San Juans (U.S.) argues that responsibilities and processes around the event of an oil tanker incident have not yet been established. The letter states that while many provincial and federal risk mitigation initiatives and protocols are in place, how well they “speak” to one another is unclear. The stakes for mitigating and responding to a spill are extremely high.

“According to estimates derived from Transport Canada’s Emergency Response Guidebook, if an Aframax tanker, which can carry 600k barrels of dilbit, spilled two-thirds of its load and only 0.5% reached shore, over 25,000 people would require immediate evacuation, while 105,000 would need to evacuate if the highly flammable cargo ignited,” the group states in the letter. 

In response to the letter, minister responsible for the environment and climate change George Heyman said, “The province has advocated for more spill response resources and introduced the requirement for the project to produce the human health risk assessment, work that was done in consultation with the health authorities, Metro Vancouver and Indigenous nations.”

The concern about the tanker traffic is cross-border. In 2023, the U.S. Ecology Department counted 173 oil tankers entering the Strait of Juan de Fuca bound for British Columbia terminals. “Oil knows no boundaries. The oil goes wherever the water takes it regardless of the border. We’re all at risk when an oil spill occurs” said Lovel Pratt, marine protection and policy director for Friends of the San Juans. “Canadian dilbit will travel from Burrard Inlet to Washington State along inland corridors along rivers, streams, and bays” he said. 

One of the mitigating steps Transport Canada has put in place is to have a marine pilot accompany the tankers through the Salish Sea. A pilot is required, by law, to have “navigational conduct” of all deep sea vessels weighing over 350 tonnes, including in the marine shipping lanes in the Salish Sea under the Pilotage Act. 

Compulsory pilotage is implemented worldwide to increase marine safety and help prevent vessel accidents. Pilots are veteran mariners with decades of experience navigating the waters in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Many start out on fishing boats or tugs as deckhands and move up to become captains of larger vessels before they are tested and trained as marine pilots. 

A pilot candidate must first have sufficient sea-time on the West Coast—at least 700 12-hour days as a captain. They must also complete a two-year familiarization program that requires ride-alongs with a pilot up and down the coast, at their own expense. 

And while a marine pilot is required, by law, to have “navigational conduct” of all deep sea vessels weighing over 350 tonnes, including in the marine shipping lanes in the Salish Sea under the Pilotage Act, there is grave concern about high winds around Race Rocks Ecological Reserve. 

Under the Ocean’s Protection Plan, there are improved weather services for mariners through the deployment of two new state-of-the-art weather buoys in the Strait of Georgia with near real-time access to observations and more detailed and precise weather forecast information through an online portal. Fisheries and Oceans Canada implemented a $75 million Aquatic Ecosystems Restoration Fund that will provide resources to restore coastal maritime ecosystems that “may be disrupted from natural resource extraction or transportation.” 

But cleanup after the fact is not the same as guaranteed protection from a spill. And that guarantee is impossible, despite programs now in place to try.

The T’Souke, Pacheedaht and Scia’new First Nations are all participating in a pilot, web-based Maritime Situational Awareness Initiative (MSAI) developed in partnership with Fujitsu Canada. The initiative provides an accessible, near real-time common operating picture for coastal communities that includes information on vessels and their routes, weather and tides and currents information.

In coordination with many of the same nations involved in the pilot MSAI, the Western Marine Response Corporation has implemented a QR code-based coastal mapping tool which provides information, by specific location, on local environmental conditions, critical habitats, shoreline features and spill response strategies. 

Despite the mitigation strategies in place, anticipated tanker traffic in the Salish Sea and the Strait of Juan de Fuca continue to raise concern.