Kinder Morgan's pipeline expansion plan has passed another major hurdle.
The National Energy Board announced Wednesday that the application is, in fact, complete, despite protest from the City of Burnaby.
Kinder Morgan submitted the application to the board in December, and the board's first step was to review the 15,000 pages to determine if it was complete before proceeding.
The board will now hold a hearing to gather information and evidence to decide whether the project is in Canada's best interests and should be approved.
The hearing location will be announced at a later date.
Another major step for the board was the announcement of who will be allowed to participate in the hearing. More than 2,100 people applied as participants in the hearing, many from Burnaby. Of those, 400 have been granted intervenor status, 798 have been granted commentator status, 452 have been granted both, and 468 were denied a chance to participate.
The board's next step is to send Trans Mountain/Kinder Morgan the first round of information requests on April 17, when the potential conditions for the project will also be announced. The board has the power to impose conditions on the project.
In mid March, the city of Burnaby's legal counsel sent a letter to the National Energy Board, requesting that the application be rejected on the grounds that it wasn't complete. According to the city, the application does not include enough information for the board to make an informed decision, or for the public to understand and analyze the project's impact.
Kinder Morgan wants to twin the existing pipeline, which runs oil from Alberta to Burnaby. The project would increase shipping capacity from 300,000 barrels of oil a day to 890,000.
With files from - Stefania Seccia
