Westridge

It has been 12 months since the Trans Mountain Expansion Project — aka TMX — finally began operations after years of delay, creating a much-needed, larger conduit to move Western Canada’s rising crude oil production to the Pacific Northwest and overseas markets. Although the customer base for exports remains limited, the Trans Mountain pipeline system has been responsible for opening up entirely new markets for Canadian crude. As we discuss in today’s RBN blog, despite its numerous delays and immense cost, the pipeline has recently seen record crude shipments and is nearing its nameplate capacity, driven by rising exports. 

After a decade-long odyssey and a cost-per-mile that must make public-sector accountants in Ottawa wince, the Canadian government-owned Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMX) — which nearly tripled the capacity of the original Trans Mountain Pipeline (TMP) from Alberta to the British Columbia (BC) coast — finally came into service in May 2024. As one of Canada’s most anticipated energy infrastructure projects in many years, the 590-Mb/d TMX pipeline — built alongside the long-standing 300-Mb/d TMP — was widely touted by its advocates as a surefire way to boost exports of Western Canadian crude and reduce the nation’s near-complete reliance on exporting crude oil to — and through — its primary customer, the U.S. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss some of the surprising (and not so surprising) market developments since the expansion project started.