Coastal GasLink (CGL), in its April construction update has said that the pipe delivery for the entire pipeline has been completed.

鈥淲hile project construction typically sees a slow-down during spring break-up, the Coastal GasLink team did achieve a significant milestone on March 29: the completion of 692 km of pipe delivered along the 670-km project route with zero safety incidents!鈥� wrote the CGL spokesperson Natasha Westover in an email to Black Press Media.

According to the update release on April 22, the pipeline company is hoping to resume operations during summer with a substantial increase in its workforce numbers since the previously declared provincial order on worker limitations on Industrial Projects in Northern B.C. has been rescinded as of April 13.

Currently, the 670-km pipeline route has a total of 1,659 workers along its route, lower from the mid-April number of 1,972.

Despite the activity slowdown and overall lowered workforce numbers, two CGL lodges have identified one COVID case each, bringing up the total cases associated with the pipeline.

In an April 27 COVID-19 update on the pipeline company鈥檚 website, there was one positive case identified in Section 4 at the Vanderhoof Lodge from north of Prince George to northwest of Vanderhoof and one at the Sukunka Lodge in Section 1 from west of Dawson Creek to south of Chetwynd.

The total workers at the Vanderhoof Lodge have gone up from 496 at the end of February to 656 at the end of March, while the total workers at the Sukunka Lodge have gone up from 127 at the end of February to 329 at the end of March.

These two cases come two weeks after the one case identified at the Huckleberry Lodge in Section 7 bringing the total number of cases from Jan 2020 at the pipeline, to 88.

The worker numbers as of end of March at other lodges in the area are 75 at the Little Rock Lake Lodge in Section 5, 210 workers at the 7 Mile Lodge in Section 6 and 135 workers at the Huckleberry Lodge in Section 7.

The pipeline company has also provided a snapshot of activities that would be taking place starting this summer most of which would revolve around pipeline assembly. Also, despite the several COVID-related setbacks, CGL has continued to remain optimistic about meeting its in-service target of 2023.

READ MORE: CGL鈥檚 Huckleberry lodge sees one COVID case

Priyanka Ketkar
Multimedia journalist

priyanka.ketkar@ldnews.net

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