Canada needs to build more oil pipelines to reduce its dependence on foreign supplies while opening up new trade corridors for exports, prime minister Mark Carney said today, amid an escalating trade war with the US.
"It's about getting things done. It's about getting, yes, getting pipelines built, across this country, so we that can displace imports of foreign oil," Carney said while in Edmonton, Alberta.
A US-triggered trade war has sparked an urgent need across Canada to diversify its trading partners and limit the country's reliance on the US. This has lifted public support for getting pipelines and other infrastructure energy projects built.
The prime minister envisions the federal government "using all of its power" and new legislation to expedite such projects, adding "additional levers" will be discussed when he meets with provincial premiers on 21 March.
"We need to do things that had not been imagined or had not been thought possible, at a speed we haven't seen before," said Carney. "That's the nature of the time."
TC Energy's current chief executive along with 13 other executives from the country's largest oil and gas companies urged the federal government this week to declare a "Canadian energy crisis" to expedite infrastructure projects.
General election soon
Carney is expected to call a general election soon with his Liberal party riding high in the polls. Despite the Liberals' recent track record on energy infrastructure, Carney is looking to appeal to Alberta voters eager for pipelines who typically vote for the rival, pro-oil patch Conservatives.
A combined C$280bn ($194bn) of Canadian oil and natural gas projects have been cancelled over the past decade, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Of this, C$164bn in the form of LNG projects, C$63bn in pipeline projects, C$30bn in oil sands projects and C$22bn in refinery projects.
TC Energy's 1.1mn b/d Energy East pipeline is commonly referenced by industry as a nation-building project that, proposed in 2013, would have supplied Albertan oil to eastern Canada but was abandoned because of changing regulations. There was still no clear indication of when a decision by the federal government could be obtained when TC Energy cancelled it in 2017.
Energy East would have piped oil as far east as Irving Oil's 320,000 b/d refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, which relies on foreign imports, while also giving shippers an outlet to export to Europe and beyond.
Canada imported 490,000 b/d of crude in 2023, according to the Canada Energy Regulator (CER). Of this, 355,000 b/d came from the US, 63,000 b/d from Nigeria and 53,000 b/d from Saudi Arabia.
Canada meanwhile produces about 5mn b/d, sending about 80pc of that to the US.
Carney's infrastructure push includes the proposed Pathways Alliance project in Alberta, which entails a C$16.5bn carbon capture and storage hub that could remove up to 22mn t/yr of CO2 by 2030.
Generally, Carney wants to pursue energy and trade corridors and trade including potentially from Alberta to either the Canada's Arctic coast in Nunavut or to Hudson Bay via Churchill, Manitoba. Or both.
The subject of trade and pipelines was front and center during a meeting with Alberta premier Danielle Smith earlier in the day, who has criticized the federal Liberals for years.
"Albertans will no longer tolerate the way we've been treated by the federal Liberals over the past 10 years," said Smith in a statement, adding a specific list of demands, including "unfettered oil and gas corridors to the north, east and west".
The Nunavut project, called the Grays Bay Road and Port Project, is a proposed deepwater port that would cater to critical mineral exports. The proponent, West Kitikmeot Resources, told Argus earlier this month that it had not yet had discussions with Alberta about developing crude capabilities.
