Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Could Boost Capacity by 2027

The expanded Trans Mountain pipeline in Canada could raise its capacity by another 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) by early 2027, which could potentially increase Canadian crude oil exports from its Pacific Coast to non-U.S. customers.

In a potential first stage of a further capacity increase, the pipeline – currently owned by the Canadian federal government – could raise the volume throughput by using chemicals to help crude flow more easily, Mark Maki, chief executive of Trans Mountain, said at a Calgary conference, as carried by Bloomberg.

Last year, the Trans Mountain pipeline finally completed its expansion – after years of delays – and tripled the capacity of the original pipeline to 890,000 bpd from 300,000 bpd to carry crude from Alberta’s oil sands to British Columbia’s coast.

The expanded pipeline provides increased transportation capacity for Canadian producers to get their oil out of Alberta and into the Pacific Coast and then to the U.S. West Coast or Asian markets.

The only east-west crude pipeline in Canada was largely expected to ship a large part of the crude to refiners on the U.S. West Coast.

However, President Trump’s trade blitz and threats to Canada’s sovereignty prompted Canada to diversify its crude oil exports and seek to reduce its over-reliance on the U.S. export market, which accounts for more than 90% of Canadian crude exports.

Crude flows from the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline have materially shifted since the relations between the United States and Canada soured under U.S. President Donald Trump.

China has now become the biggest buyer of Canadian crude shipped via the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline to Canada’s West Coast, according to data from Kpler cited by Reuters.

The crude shipped on the expanded the Trans Mountain pipeline to Canada’s Pacific coast is now finding buyers in China, which wants to diversify its crude oil sources and hedge against continued U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and oil trade network, including China-based independent refiners that have bought Iranian oil.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com