Alberta seeks to 'de-risk' oil, gas pipeline investments in wake of Trump victory

TransCanada's Keystone pipeline facilities are seen in Hardisty, Alta., on Friday, Nov. 6, 2015. (Jeff McIntosh / The Canadian Press)

Alberta's government is looking for ways to encourage pipeline companies to boost capacity and increase the province's oil and gas export volumes to the United States.

But Premier Danielle Smith said her government is not interested in directly subsidizing a cross-border pipeline project, preferring instead to find ways to "de-risk" a potential private sector investment.

"We’re looking to make connections with the United States, to see their appetite for assisting in helping to get more product going into the United States," Smith told reporters Monday at an event in Leduc County, Alta.

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"Maybe de-risking the project involves having an American partner, an American pipeline company, partner with our companies here," she added.

"We just don’t think the best way of doing it is putting government dollars into it, but we think there are other things we can do to change the risk profile.”

Canada's main oil-and-gas producing province is keen to expand its pipeline access to the U.S. in the wake of Donald Trump's presidential election victory.

Trump has been a vocal supporter of oil and gas generally.

In his first presidential term, Trump supported TC Energy Corp.'s Keystone XL pipeline project, a 1,900-kilometre proposed crude oil transportation pipeline that would have carried oil from Alberta to the U.S. — but that was scuttled when his successor, President Joe Biden, revoked the project's permit on environmental grounds.

TC Energy is no longer the owner of the Keystone pipeline network, having spun it off into a separate company called South Bow Corp., but some industry watchers have questioned whether the project could be revived.

In an interview with The Canadian Press last week, TC Energy CEO François Poirier said the Alberta government has reached out to the Calgary-based pipeline company to see if Keystone XL could be revived or if there are other ways to increase Alberta's oil and gas pipeline export volumes to the U.S.

A spokeswoman for South Bow Corp. did not say last week whether the company is interested in reviving the Keystone project, but said South Bow "supports efforts to transport more Canadian crude oil to meet U.S. demand."

In 2020, the Alberta government under former premier Jason Kenney agreed to invest about $1.5 billion in equity in the Keystone XL project in an effort to get the stalled pipeline project moving.

In recent years, new pipeline projects have become extremely contentious. High-profile projects such as the Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion and the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline have been marred by environmental and Indigenous protests as well as budget overruns.

But Smith said Monday there are many ways to boost Alberta's oil and gas pipeline exports to the U.S. that don't include "putting money on the table."

"There’s lots of ways also for us to use existing rights-of-way, existing pipeline access, to expand exports — whether it’s through loops or compression or twinning the line on an existing pipeline," she said.

"And so we’re looking at all of those various options."

Smith said the province aims to give pipeline companies confidence that any expanded capacity will be filled by Alberta's growing oil output.

Year-to-date oil production in Alberta for 2024 has been at all-time record levels, thanks to the startup earlier this year of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. That project cost $34 billion to build, but tripled the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline, adding an additional 590,000 barrels of oil per day of shipping capability from Alberta to B.C.'s West Coast.

Analysts have suggested year-over-year production growth in Alberta of an additional 100,000 to 300,000 barrels of oil per day will continue into 2025, and Smith has previously suggested that the province could double its oil output by 2050.

Earlier this month, Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. said it has begun talks with its customers about expanding its Mainline pipeline network to handle growing volumes of Canadian oil output.

Enbridge's Mainline system is the largest pipeline system in North America, moving crude from Western Canada to markets in Eastern Canada and the U.S. Midwest.

The company emphasized it is looking at a small expansion that would add incremental capacity along the existing pipeline network.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2024.