CALGARY - Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP said Tuesday it has enough customer support to take the next steps in a $3.8-billion project to double the capacity of its Trans Mountain pipeline between Alberta and the West Coast to 600,000 barrels per day.

The U.S. pipeline company held an open season between Oct. 20 and Feb. 16 to gauge interest in the project and said it received "strong binding commercial support from a diverse group of customers."

A final decision on whether to build the project will be made by the end of March, said Kinder Morgan Canada president Ian Anderson, who called the results of the open season "very encouraging."

"The strong support received through this process will now allow us to complete initial project design and planning," he said.

"We are looking forward to engaging in dialogue with First Nations, interested stakeholders and communities along the pipeline."

The 1,150-kilometre Trans Mountain pipeline delivers a variety of petroleum products from Edmonton to the Vancouver area and Washington state. It provides about 90 per cent of the B.C. Lower Mainland's gasoline supply.

Fellow pipeline giant Enbridge Inc. (TSX:ENB) is planning to build another Alberta-to-West Coast project called Northern Gateway, which would end up much further north along the B.C. coast at the port of Kitimat.

That $5.5-billion proposal consists of two parallel pipelines, one that would carry 525,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta westward for export to Asia and another that would carry 193,000 barrels per day of imported condensates, used to make oilsands bitumen thin enough to transport, eastward.

Northern Gateway has attracted vocal opposition from First Nations, environmental and other groups who fear an oil spill from the pipeline itself or from tankers along the coast could cause serious ecological harm. Many of those groups have also voiced opposition to Kinder Morgan's pipeline proposal.

"If I were Kinder Morgan, I wouldn't be getting my hopes up about a tar sands pipeline to the coast. Kinder Morgan is going to get the same chilly reception Enbridge is getting now," said Greenpeace campaigner Mike Hudema in an emailed statement.

"People in B.C. don't want hundreds of tar sands tankers that pose ongoing danger to B.C.'s pristine coastline and the tens of thousands of jobs that depend on it."

In addition to heavy oil, like that produced in the oilsands, Kinder Morgan also currently transports light oil, distillates and gasoline to the West Coast on the Trans Mountain line.