Line 3 Replacement Project

The late-August decision by Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal to overturn the Canadian government’s approval of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project will delay the project’s completion to at least 2021 or 2022. And — who knows? — the unanimous ruling may ultimately lead to TMX’s undoing, despite the Canadian government’s acquisition of the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline and the expansion project and its commitment to get TMX built. As producers in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) know all too well, TMX’s 590 Mb/d of incremental pipeline capacity would help to resolve ever-worsening pipeline takeaway constraints out of the Alberta oil sands and other production areas in the WCSB. These constraints are having a major economic impact every day — as evidenced by price differentials wide enough to run a locomotive through. Speaking of trains, crude-by-rail exports out of Western Canada reached a record 205 Mb/d in June, an 86% increase from the same month last year, and with WCSB production rising as new oil sands capacity comes online and with only limited relief likely on the pipeline capacity front from the Enbridge Line 3 Replacement Project in late 2019, many producers will need to depend on rail shipments of crude well into the 2020s. Today, we discuss the recent court ruling and what it means for Western Canadian producers, price spreads and the future of crude-by-rail.