Workers at the site of TC Energy Corp’s Coastal GasLink pipeline have been told to leave by an indigenous community in British Columbia’s Pacific province.
The project’s opponents, the hereditary chiefs from five clans of the Wet’suwet’en community of Canada, have been trying to stop the gas pipeline work in the province’s north for over a year.
Coastal, which is controlled by private equity company KKR & Co Inc, Alberta Investment Management Corp and TC, claims that it has permission to operate on the pipeline, citing a British Columbia Supreme Court ruling issued in 2019 against worker blockades. It claims that the protests are unlawful.
On Monday, Coastal GasLink issued a statement on its website, expressing concern for the safety of its employees following the closure of forestry roads leading to their housing lodges.
Coastal reported that trees had been toppled and that project trucks and equipment had been vandalised in the region.
The C$6.6 billion pipeline will transport natural gas from northeast British Columbia to the Pacific coast, feeding Royal Dutch Shell and its partners’ LNG Canada export facility. Wet’suwet’en lands make up about 28 percent of the 670-kilometer route.
One of the clans, the Gidimt’en, confirmed in a statement on Sunday that it had ordered that Coastal GasLink staff to leave the region. The clan leader stated that they had made several efforts to communicate with the company but had received no response.
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