The operator behind Trans Mountain's 890,000 b/d pipeline system in western Canada is looking into increasing its capacity as export congestion looms, while threatened US tariffs may prompt the country to re-examine its broader pipeline strategy.
"We have started to identify and investigate opportunities that could improve the throughput efficiency of the system and increase capacity of the pipeline — ideally in the next four to five years," Trans Mountain told Argus on Friday.
Federally-owned Trans Mountain would not say how much of an increase it was contemplating, but any plans would be subject to thorough regulatory reviews and approval before proceeding.
The system connects producers in oil-rich Alberta to the docks at Burnaby, British Columbia, and its capacity was roughly tripled when the 590,000 b/d Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) was placed into service in May 2024. The increased system has been a popular outlet for shippers, both for selling to US West coast refiners, but also for producers looking to bypass the US altogether and target Asian countries.
Trans Mountain is expected to be full by 2028, chief executive Mark Maki told a parliamentary committee in October, as are other lines which have operators like Enbridge also looking to up egress capacity. The laying of new pipe may not necessarily be a big part of these increases as both are looking at making their systems more efficient.
TMX is expected to cost about C$34bn ($24bn) after enduring regulatory delays, political and environmental resistance, court orders, wildfires, floods, Covid-19 measures, and rising labor costs caused by competing pipelines since being proposed in 2013.
Other proposed export pipelines like Enbridge's 525,000 b/d Northern Gateway and TC Energy's 1.1mn b/d Energy East did not get past the approval stage under a federal Liberal government.
Alberta premier Danielle Smith on 16 January called on Canada to "immediately start construction on the Northern Gateway and Energy East pipelines" to decrease the country's reliance on US customers in the wake of threatened tariffs by president-elect Donald Trump.
Prime minister Justin Trudeau and all Canadian premiers, except Smith, have not ruled out the use of Canada's energy — most of which comes from Alberta — in retaliation to US tariffs.
Smith has been labeled by some as not being part of a unified front for Canada, but she questions where the "Team Canada" approach has been in the past, citing suffocating regulations for the energy industry and decades of transfer payments made to Quebec, Ontario and the Maritime provinces at the expense of Alberta taxpayers.
There is precedent for Smith's concerns, referencing a clash between Alberta and prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin's father, in 1973 when a federal tax was imposed on Canadian oil exported to the US amid the Arab oil embargo. Conflict peaked again in the early 1980s when the Trudeau government introduced its National Energy Program, which included price controls on domestic oil.