Trans Mountain's Woes Continue as Canada Announces $C888 Million Write-Down

Western Canada’s Trans Mountain Expansion Project, better-known as TMX, has experienced more than its share of setbacks over the past 10 years: environmental protests, legal challenges, financing issues, an ownership change, and even a serious flooding event in 2021. But it seems the 590-Mb/d expansion of the now-300-Mb/d Trans Mountain Pipeline (TMP) system will finally become a reality by early 2024, enabling large-scale exports of Alberta-sourced crude oil to Asian markets. There’s a catch, though. The project’s long delays and other issues resulted in massive cost overruns that are now being reflected in the preliminary tolls for the soon-to-be-combined Trans Mountain system. The proposed toll increase is so large that it will cost a similar amount to ship heavy crude oil to tidewater on Trans Mountain as it would on the competing Enbridge system to the U.S. Gulf Coast for “re-export,” despite the latter being three times the distance. In today’s blog, we discuss the history of the Trans Mountain expansion, its cost overruns and the calculations that went into the proposed tolls — the kicker being that those tolls could end up being even higher.

For most of the past three years, Western Canadian producers have had to deal with crude oil pipeline constraints — takeaway-capacity shortfalls serious enough to spur huge price discounts for the region’s benchmark Western Canadian Select (WCS) that are sufficient to support the higher cost of crude-by-rail alternatives. But things are changing, and fast. WCS prices are at or near historic lows — low enough to convince a number of producers to rein in their capital spending and production. Crude-by-rail use is down, and there’s even space available on the usually maxed-out Enbridge Mainline system, the region’s primary pipeline egress. And wouldn’t you know it, just as production is slipping and constraints are easing, real progress is being made on three big pipeline projects that had long been in limbo: the Line 3 Expansion, the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) and Keystone XL. Today, we provide an update on Western Canadian crude takeaway capacity and examine whether the region may — irony of ironies — end up with too much.

Western Canada is blessed with extraordinary hydrocarbon resources and in recent years has been ramping up production in the Alberta oil sands and in the Duvernay and Montney shale plays. The U.S. is pretty much Canada’s only crude oil and natural gas customer, though, and there are limits to how much Canada can export to its southern neighbor — especially in the Shale Era, with the U.S. producing more oil and gas than ever and meeting an increasing share of its own needs. So Canadian producers, midstream companies and others have been working to gain access to new, overseas markets. It has not gone well. Pipeline projects to transport oil and gas to the British Columbia coast have been set back time and again, as have plans for crude and LNG export terminals. At last, there may be some good news. The Canadian government has stepped in to help push through a critically important oil pipeline to the coast, and BC’s leading LNG project just signed on a major new investor/customer. Today, we consider recent moves that could finally allow large volumes of Western Canadian oil and gas to be shipped to Asia.