Chevron is opening a field office in the Houston Industrial Park for pre-construction activities for the proposed Pacific Trail Pipeline.
The office will open for the field construction season, from late-June or July until October or early-November, said Gillian Robinson.
Robinson is the Communications Officer for Kitimat LNG and Chevron Canada.
"This is not a work camp, we do not have plans for a work camp in the area at this time," she said.
The office will have eight trailers and will be a base for field crews in the area.
Robinson says they expect 12 people working from the office and contractors from time to time.
They will be doing environmental and archaeological field studies, upgrading and maintenance on access roads, centreline surveying and flagging, flagging boundaries and clearing the right of way, Robinson said.
She says that this year Kitimat LNG is focusing on a section of the Pacific Trails Pipeline about 25 kilometres south of Houston.
It starts in the Owen Hill area and continues 54 kilometres west, she said.
The total planned length of the PTP is 480 kilometres.
Robinson says they have been doing this type of pre-construction work for the last two summers in the Terrace area, which is the western portion of the proposed right of way.
The Houston office they are setting up will not be open to the public.
Robinson says hiring for early works this year will be done by the main contractor, Shas PTP Ltd.
They were contracted to do clearing and build access roads on the eastern portion of the Pacific Trails Pipeline (PTP).
Shas is a First Nations owned company and much of the sub-contracted work this summer will also be with First Nations companies, or companies in a joint venture with First Nations companies that are contracted through Shas PTP Ltd., said Robinson.
Falcon Contracting, who is setting up the office in Houston, is 100 percent First Nations owned and operated.
Chevron received permits for this pre-construction work from the Oil and Gas Commission in April, Robinson said.
"We also have support to begin this work from all 16 First Nations bands along the proposed PTP route who are partners in the project through the First Nations Limited Partnership."
Actual construction of the pipeline will not begin until a Final Investment Decision is made. Robinson says they do not have a date estimate for the final investment decision at this time.