Uncertainty over potential tariffs on US imports from Canada and Mexico is already roiling North American energy trade, as trading desks struggle to understand how tariffs would be assessed and some buyers are unwilling to commit to taking March cargoes without more details.
US president Donald Trump's planned 10pc tariff on energy commodity imports from Canada and a 25pc import tax on Mexican energy was originally set for 4 February but he postponed implementation until 4 March. The three governments are negotiating to avert a full-blown trade war, and many market participants are hoping that Trump would again delay their implementation after winning some concessions, as he did earlier this month.
But even without tariffs in place, vast segments of the energy industry — oil and gas producers, refiners, pipeline operators, traders — are bracing for them.
Energy trade across North America has been tariff-free for decades. Trump during his first term terminated the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement, but replaced it with the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement in 2020 that kept the energy trade terms unchanged.
The sudden imposition of tariffs after decades of free trade could create legal uncertainty in contractual obligations related to the payment of tariffs and reporting requirements, law firm Vinson & Elkins partner Jason Fleischer told Argus. "It's been a long time since oil and gas pipelines have really had to deal with anything quite like this."
At least one large Canadian refiner attempted to pass along the tariff to gasoline cargo buyers in the US ahead of the original 4 February start date, leading a few buyers to threaten to pull out of their contracts, market sources told Argus.
Complicating the matter is the approach taken by the Trump administration to impose import taxes differs greatly from current trade terms. The regular US customs duties on crude, for example, are currently set in volumetric terms, at 5.25¢/bl and 10.5¢/bl depending on crude quality. In practice, nearly every source of US crude imports is exempt from tariffs at present.
But the import tax set out in Trump's executive orders is to be imposed on the value of the commodity — without specifying how that will be calculated and at what specific point during the transportation process. Likewise, guidance on the new tariffs from the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), given just before the original 4 February deadline, did not address the specific issues relating to the energy commodities.
CBP and the Treasury Department will have to issue regulations spelling out specific details on how tariffs are to be assessed and collected, Vinson & Elkins partner Jeff Jakubiak said.
"The advice we're giving to companies is to collect information and get ready to provide it to the government at some point in the future," Jakubiak said. If tariffs go into effect, "there is likely to be a combination of reporting obligations by the transporter as well as the owner of the commodity. And in both cases, my advice is, figure out how you can accurately count and assign volumes that are moving across the border and figure out how you would price those."
Market effects also uncertain
The uncertainty over the timing and details of implementation of tariffs have left the affected market participants having to guess who will carry the burden of new taxes.
The discount for Western Canadian Select (WCS) crude at Hardisty, Alberta, to the CMA Nymex WTI contract widened on the eve of the initial 4 February deadline of tariffs, suggesting that market participants expected Canadian producers to bear the brunt of tariffs.
But over time, that burden likely will shift depending on individual market power of buyers and sellers. This could hit refiners in the US midcontinent that currently rely on WCS and have few alternatives to taking Canadian crude. They could, in turn, pass on the additional costs to consumers at the pump.
US independent refiner PBF Energy said this week that tariffs would likely cut US midcon refinery runs, even if those refiners could find alternatives to Canadian crudes.
Most Mexico-sourced crude markets are seaborne, giving producers in that country an alternative to US markets. "For this scenario, we anticipate [US Gulf coast] refiners will reduce consumption to the lower limit of their contractual obligations but will continue to purchase Mexican crude and pay the tariff via reduced refining margins," investment bank Macquarie said in a recent note to clients.
Canadian producers also expressed concern about the uncertain impact of tariffs on crude volumes trans-shipped through the US, either for exports to third country destinations from Gulf coast ports or transported on US pipelines to destinations in eastern Canada. Without guidance from the US customs authorities, it is not clear if such flows would be subject to new US tariffs.
Integrated oil sands producer Suncor's refineries on the Canadian east coast rely on crude flows from Enbridge's 540,000 b/d Line 5 or 500,000 b/d Line 78 that cross into the US in Michigan before crossing back into Canada.
"I would say that I don't know that anyone on the planet knows exactly what's going to happen on tariffs," chief executive Rich Kruger said.
