Alberta and Ottawa propose new oil pipeline to British Columbia coast
Global News says costs and shipper commitments remain unresolved, last westbound expansion ended up taxpayer owned
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Canada’s federal government and Alberta have filed a proposal for a new oil pipeline to a deep-water port on British Columbia’s south coast, pitching it as a “project in the national interest,” according to Global News. The plan would run alongside the existing Trans Mountain line, with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney presenting it as a route to new export capacity and jobs.
The first obstacle is that Canada already has expansion projects in progress that would add more than a million barrels per day of capacity, and industry veterans interviewed by Global News describe those as lower-risk, quicker and cheaper than starting a second major line. The last big attempt to add westbound capacity—Trans Mountain’s expansion—ended up costing taxpayers more than $34 billion by the time it began pumping oil in 2024, a precedent that hangs over any new “nation-building” announcement. A retired energy executive, Dennis McConaghy, told Global News the basic commercial question remains unanswered: which oil sands producers will commit to producing and shipping the incremental barrels needed to fill the pipe over decades.
Pipeline economics turns on contracts, not speeches. Richard Masson, a former head of the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission, said shippers typically sign 20-year commitments and will only do so if tolls are competitive with alternatives—numbers that cannot be known until routing and engineering are further along. Global News reports estimates for the new line in the tens of billions of dollars, and Masson suggested tolls could be materially higher than the existing Trans Mountain system, making the “national interest” label a poor substitute for a business case.
The political bargain is also doing double duty as climate policy. Environmental groups told Global News they expected a clearer commitment to decarbonisation, centring on the Pathways carbon capture and storage project that governments have repeatedly linked to oil sands expansion. The federal government has said Pathways is expected to cut emissions by 16 million tonnes annually once fully operational, but critics argue the pipeline announcement leans on a project that is still being negotiated rather than built.
British Columbia Premier David Eby has opposed the project but indicated his government would not fight it in court, while Ottawa has pledged to maintain the ban on oil tankers off northern British Columbia’s coast. The proposed pipeline, by design, would instead funnel more tanker traffic through the province’s southern coastline.
Alberta says construction could begin as early as 2027, and it hopes oil could start flowing in the early 2030s. Canada’s last westbound expansion started as a commercial project and ended as a taxpayer-owned pipeline.