As Canada fights over Trans Mountain, Enbridge’s most expensive project — Line 3 — inches towards completion

It’s the largest project in the history of Enbridge, itself the largest oil and gas pipeline company in North America. If completed as planned in mid-2019, it will boost oilsands export capacity by 375,000 barrels per day — over half of what the Trans Mountain Expansion will add.

But it’s likely you’ve never heard of Line 3.

“A lot of people don’t even know it exists,” said Laura Cameron, a community organizer with the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition, in an interview with The Narwhal. “There just hasn’t been very much conversation around it.”

The Line 3 Replacement Program, or Line 3 for short, spans almost 1,700 kilometres and transports diluted bitumen from the oilsands from Hardisty, Alberta, to Superior, Wisconsin.

Due to the age and jeopardized quality of the existing pipeline, capacity of Line 3 has been cut in half.