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A drone view of three berths able to load vessels with oil is seen after their construction at Westridge Marine Terminal, the terminus of the Canadian government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, April 26, 2024.
Alberta oil flowing, but that won’t help Trudeau
A pipeline that gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a huge headache is finally delivering benefits — to oil companies, at least — although Trudeau should not expect to get political rewards for his troubles.
Refineries in Washington state and Oregon are displacing Iraqi crude with cheaper oil from Alberta that is now available thanks to the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which moves bitumen-heavy Alberta crude from the oil sands in the north to the British Columbia coast.
Trudeau’s government has endured withering criticism from Western Canadians for failing to back the aggressive expansion of the emissions-intensive Alberta oil production. On the other hand, British Columbians opposed a potentially dangerous pipeline running to their beautiful coastal waters. Still, Trudeau brokered an uneasy compromise with Albertans, who couldn’t believe they had to sell their oil at a discount because of transport bottlenecks. To try to please both sides, in 2018, Trudeau bought the pipeline from Kinder Morgan for CDN $4.5 billion, which pleased nobody.
That decision is now looking like a win for the Canadian economy. There were huge cost overruns, but it will earn an estimated CA$26 to $38 billion over the next 20 years — and oil exporters don’t have to ship their product by railcar, which should get them higher prices, since they can reach new markets. The new oil in US refineries may give Americans slightly cheaper gas and, but the big winners are Canadian taxpayers, who are likely to benefit thanks to royalties and tax revenue for decades to come. Still, while it’s a big win for Alberta, Trudeau is unlikely to win any votes in the staunchly conservative oil patch, where his name is mud.
Chevron and Hess logos.
Hard Numbers: US firms go on a Canadian energy run, Taiwan strait drama continues, Russian sanctions-busters busted, Names are for the birds
3.2 billion: So far this year, US firms have spent $3.2 billion acquiring Canadian oil and gas companies, the highest figure in a dozen years. Lower valuations for Canadian energy producers are drawing interest from south of the border.
2: Never a dull moment in the Taiwan Strait these days, as the US and Canada have sent two ships through the waterway for the second time in as many months, prompting China — which regards self-governing Taiwan as one of its own possessions — to put its troops on “high alert.”
3: US authorities have charged three people — including two Canadian citizens — with scheming to send millions of dollars' worth of blacklisted technology to Russia. All three of the defendants, who carry Russian passports, were accused of exporting items that Russia has used as part of its invasion of Ukraine.
80: The American Ornithological Society will change the official nonscientific names of as many as 80 US and Canadian bird species named after historical bird nerds who owned slaves, exploited Indigenous people, or held other beliefs that the society says “don’t work for us today.” Wilson’s Warbler for example – named for 19th century naturalist Alexander Wilson – will now go the way of the thick-billed Longspur, formerly named for Confederate Gen. John P McCown. The society says it’s time to “redirect the focus to the birds, where it belongs.”