The Thrill Is Gone - Does Slow Growth in Oil Sands Output Justify New Pipeline Capacity?

It’s been a tough few years for Canadian oil producers. As they ramped up production in the oil sands, Canadian E&Ps faced pipeline takeaway constraints that drove down the price of Western Canadian Select versus Gulf Coast crudes. The Keystone XL pipeline would have largely solved things, but when that project was killed by Canada’s U.S. friends and neighbors, oil sands producers had to settle for a series of smaller, more incremental projects that provided only a partial fix. The devastating Alberta fires of May 2016 reduced production and pretty much eliminated constraints for much of this year. But volumes have recovered, and if oil sands production is to continue growing, more pipelines and new customers will be needed. Today we consider Canada’s long-running effort to ensure there’s enough capacity to move its crude to market, two major projects that just won the backing of the Canadian government, and what may be next.

On Friday, TransCanada finally secured a Presidential Permit for the U.S. portion of its Keystone XL pipeline, and the company committed to pursuing the state approvals it still needs to build the project. But three hard truths—crude oil prices below $50/bbl, the high cost of producing bitumen and moving it to market, and more attractive energy investments available elsewhere—have thrown a wet blanket on once-ambitious plans to significantly expand production in Western Canada’s oil sands, the primary source of the product that would flow through Keystone XL. Today we begin a series on stagnating production growth in the world’s premier crude bitumen area, the odds for and against a rebound any time soon, and the need (or lack thereof) for more pipelines.

Three major crude oil pipeline projects now under development would add nearly 1.8 MMb/d of much-needed takeaway capacity out of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB), a region hit hard by pipeline constraints and widening price differentials. But each of the three projects — Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX), Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement Project and TransCanada’s Keystone XL — continues to face regulatory challenges and it remains unclear how many of the projects will advance to construction and how soon the first of them might come online. It’s also possible that one or more may go the way of Northern Gateway and Energy East, two major pipeline projects that went belly-up after years of planning. Today, we continue our blog series on Western Canadian crude oil with a look at Keystone XL and its prospects.