Common Carrier Applications – A Mythical Unicorn Or A Real And Substantive Threat?

A common carrier is a pipeline that must accept all products offered to it for transportation provided that it has excess capacity.¹ British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba all have provincial legislation governing when a common carrier application can be made by a producer wanting to transport its product on an intra-provincial pipeline. In practice, only Alberta and British Columbia have actually granted a common carrier order and have a well-defined process to review an application for a common carrier order.

Alberta's common carrier legislation and supporting Alberta Energy Regulatory (AER) directive is the most comprehensive of the four provinces and provides the most certainty for those applying. The AER has a defined process and will review a common carrier application in 120 days.² In British Columbia, the British Columbia Utilities Commission also has a defined process but the processing time for a common carrier application varies from one