Trans Mountain Pipe Line( Busy Month) June 12 (Reuters) - Twenty-two oil tankers are scheduled to load this month in Vancouver with crude from the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline, which is running around 80% full with a "little bit" of spot capacity also being used, a Trans Mountain executive said on Wednesday.
Speaking with Reuters six weeks after the C$34.2 billion ($24.94 billion) project started commercial operations, Trans Mountain Corp's chief financial and strategy officer Mark Maki said so far the system is operating as expected and final costs for the expansion are not expected to rise significantly.
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The Trans Mountain expansion, which tripled pipeline capacity from Alberta to Canada's Pacific Coast to 890,000 barrels per day (bpd) started commercial operations on May 1 and traders are closely watching flows to gauge demand.
Eighty percent, or 707,000 bpd, of the pipeline's capacity is reserved for long-term contracted shippers, while the remaining 20% is available to spot barrels.
"We're basically running at effectively right around contract level with a little bit of spot on the system," Maki said, adding that volumes were expected to rise towards winter.
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Maki said there were 22 tankers scheduled to load at Westridge dock, the pipeline's terminus in the Port of Vancouver, in June.
Traders and shipping sources had been concerned that logistical constraints at the port could limit tanker loadings at Westridge to less than 20 a month.
So far the marine facility is performing well, Maki added, although the company had to work through some start-up issues on one piece of equipment known as a vapor recovery unit, which removes unwanted vapors from crude.