PROJECT SUMMARY 

Matrix began supporting construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMEP) in Spring 2019. TMEP is essentially a twinning of the existing 1,150-kilometre pipeline between Strathcona County (near Edmonton), Alberta and Burnaby, BC. The expansion includes new and modified facilities (pump stations and tanks), as well as three new berths at the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby, BC. It will create a pipeline system with the nominal capacity of the system going from approximately 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day.  

The project is regulated by the Canada Energy Regulator and must comply with the approval conditions received during construction while also avoiding or reducing the potential adverse effects on any newly identified environmental features encountered by the project during construction. 

OUR ROLE 

Matrix was contracted to provide construction support for the portions of the project located in Alberta including construction Spreads 1 and 2. Working together with Aseniwuche Winewak Nation (AWN) we leveraged our partnership to provide the following services to facilitate construction. 

• Wildlife Sweeps 
• Pre-construction bird nest sweeps including the development and implementation of mitigation plans 
• Amphibian Salvage and Relocation 
• Water Quality Monitoring during Horizontal Direction Drills of watercourse crossings 
• Contaminated Site Assessments
• GIS and Mapping 
• Information Management 
• Spill Response 
• Wetlands identification and delineation 
• Soil sampling 
• Vegetation surveys 
• Resource feature flagging and staking 

CHALLENGES 

The construction schedule required all TMEP contractors to be responsive and agile in order to meet the resource demands required for the project. With a pipeline project of this size and scale, change management, information management, and effective team communication were the key challenges to overcome. As part of Matrix’s work on TMEP, Matrix’s GIS and data management group worked closely with our client, consultants, and subcontractors to develop a data management solution to improve the quality and timeliness of daily reporting and field planning. This work included initial meetings to understand our client’s requirements and iterate as changes were needed.  The system consisted of the development of an ESRI Geodatabase which served as the data source of truth for the project.  A series of mobile data collection applications using ArcGIS Collector were also developed to allow dozens of field crews to collect quality, consistent information and have it submitted directly to a central database.  ArcGIS Portal web-maps were configured for quality assurance, quality control, and planning purposes.  A series of PowerBI dashboards and reports were developed for daily reporting and planning.