A decision on whether to fast-track the proposed $44-billion oil pipeline linking Alberta to British Columbia is expected Thursday, the Vancouver Sun reports.

The dollar figure anchors the project among the largest proposed crude transportation investments on the books in Western Canada. Any fast-track designation would compress the regulatory timeline for the line, which is designed to move additional Alberta crude volumes west toward Pacific-facing export infrastructure in British Columbia.

Thursday's expected ruling lands at the cabinet level, where proponents have sought an accelerated approval pathway rather than a conventional multi-year review. For Alberta producers, the stakes are straightforward: egress capacity remains the binding constraint on Canadian heavy crude realizations, and every new barrel of pipeline takeaway narrows the discount at which Western Canada Select trades against North American benchmarks.

For British Columbia, the calculus runs through the coastal and interior communities along the right-of-way, where prior pipeline battles — most recently over the Trans Mountain expansion — established the political and legal terrain any new large-diameter line must cross.

The $44-billion capital estimate covers the build as currently scoped by its backers. Industry analysts tracking Canadian midstream development have long argued that cost figures of this magnitude hinge on regulatory certainty; a decision to expedite permitting would materially de-risk the front-end engineering and procurement phase, while a slower track would push final investment decision timelines deeper into the decade.

Market participants will parse Thursday's announcement for two specifics: whether the fast-track designation attaches binding review deadlines, and whether it survives the foreseeable court challenges that have reshaped — and in some cases overturned — federal approvals for major Canadian energy infrastructure over the past decade.

The watch item is Thursday's decision itself, followed by the project's formal regulatory filing and the eventual final investment decision. Each step determines when — or whether — the $44 billion moves from proposal to steel in the ground.