TransCanada Pushes to Move an Extra 850,000 Barrels a Day of Tar Sands Oil Out of Alberta

After months of testing the waters, TransCanada Corporation recently announced that it will begin taking commitments from parties interested in using its natural gas pipeline to transport crude oil from Alberta to refineries in eastern Canada.

The proposal is comprised of two parts: First, the company wants to modify existing pipelines to carry western crude oil instead of natural gas. Second, it hopes to extend the route through Quebec and possibly as far as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

The project would convert roughly 3,000 kilometres of pipeline for the transport of crude oil, and would construct up to 1,400 kilometres of new pipeline. The process would also involve the construction of several new terminals.

As it stands, refineries in eastern Canada import more than 600,000 barrels of oil per day, the result of increased tar sands production without the infrastructure necessary to move oil out of Alberta. Depending on the level of interest from shippers, the new plan could transport up to 850,000 additional barrels per day. The company is now holding an open season to invite binding agreements.

This latest attempt to make up revenues lost due to the bottlenecking of Alberta oil is an indication that energy companies and government regulators alike are prioritizing tar sands expansion over environmental protection. With 10 spills in North American in the past month—nearly half of which were crude oil—plans to trade gas for the heavier, more corrosive tar sands oil in Canada’s aging pipeline infrastructure seems ill-advised.

Last year a TransCanada engineer, Evan Vokes, became a whistle-blower after the company refused to act on his concerns about pipeline safety, including faulty weld seams. 

Beyond the risks pipelines pose to neighbouring communities, new oil-transport infrastructure signals an increasing reliance on carbon-heavy fuel sources.

“Fuelling global warming is not in our national interest,” Keith Stewart, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, told the Globe and Mail. “If they are serious about stopping climate change then our governments should promote green energy investments, not new tar sands pipelines.”

Quebec premier Pauline Marois and New Brunswick premier David Allward have formed a working group to review proposals that would send crude oil through their provinces, weighing the economic benefits against the environmental costs. Allward has come out in support of the project, but Marois has been more hesitant.

TransCanada is not the only company trying to push Alberta crude east. Late last year Enbridge proposed a reversal of its Line 9 pipeline, which would send light crude oil east to Quebec, a move Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver called an exercise in good public relations.

The proposal to extend the existing pipeline has been touted by some in the oil and gas industry as an alternative to the Northern Gateway and the Keystone XL pipeline projects should they not get approval, keeping jobs in Canada.

But TransCanada CEO Russ Girling doesn’t see it that way.

“It's not a Plan B. It's a Plan A, and it will go if the market supports it, along with Keystone,” he told a Colorado newspaper in February. “Once you get on tidewater, you can get anywhere, and you don't need a presidential permit to bring oil into the Gulf Coast.”

With tar sands production in Canada set to increase threefold in the next several decades, the company believes the project is necessary to keep Canada competitive.