Nicolai Haugsted
1. Canada takes another step away from the US with ambitious new oil export pipeline.
Canada has spent decades enjoying one enormous advantage in the oil business: its biggest customer happens to live right next door.
That convenience has also created a vulnerability. More than 90 percent of Canadian crude exports went to the United States in 2025, leaving the country heavily exposed to its southern neighbour at a moment when trade relations have become increasingly difficult.
Prime Minister Mark Carney now wants a considerably bigger exit toward the Pacific.
According to Reuters, Ottawa has officially designated the proposed Pacific Link oil pipeline as a project of national interest, putting the massive infrastructure plan on an accelerated federal regulatory path. The project is central to Carney’s broader push to reduce Canada’s economic dependence on the United States and expand trade with Asia — an effort that has taken on greater urgency amid President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Canada wants more customers
Pacific Link would transport roughly one million barrels of Canadian crude per day from Alberta toward a new marine terminal on the British Columbia coast.
Carney announced the decision Thursday in Fort McMurray, the heart of Alberta’s oil sands industry.
“A pipeline to the west coast is part of our mission to transform our economy, to double our non-U.S. exports over the next decade … and to unlock our full potential as a global energy superpower,” Carney said.
National-interest status matters because it moves Pacific Link into the framework created by the Building Canada Act, which is designed to streamline federal approvals for major projects.
Ottawa plans to finalize the project conditions by September 1, 2027, potentially clearing the way for construction after the necessary approvals and permits are secured.
Trump gives Canada another reason to look west
Geography has made the United States the obvious destination for Canadian oil for generations.
Politics has made that arrangement less comfortable.
Carney has made diversification a central part of his economic agenda as Canada attempts to insulate itself from Trump’s trade policies. Reuters reports that reducing the impact of U.S. tariffs is one of the motivations behind Ottawa’s drive to find more customers outside the American market.
Canadian officials say Pacific Link would provide much greater access to Asian buyers by adding another one million barrels per day of export capacity.
China has already become the largest buyer of seaborne crude shipped through the expanded Trans Mountain system, taking roughly 60 percent of those exports, according to Natural Resources Canada.
Carney’s ambition goes considerably further.
His government wants Canada to double its non-U.S. exports over the coming decade as part of a broader effort to become less reliant on any single trading partner.
Ottawa puts some very large numbers on the table
Pipeline politics tends to produce numbers with plenty of zeroes, and Pacific Link is no exception.
Ottawa estimates the project could support approximately 140,000 jobs at the height of pipeline construction and associated upstream development. Carney’s government also projects more than C$20 billion in additional annual GDP and over C$100 billion in government revenue by 2060.
Those figures are government projections rather than guaranteed economic outcomes.
Building the pipeline will not be cheap either.
Alberta estimates the price tag at between C$35.2 billion and C$43.7 billion, according to Reuters. Filling an additional million-barrel-per-day pipeline would also require substantial growth in oil sands production, including expansion on a scale producers have not undertaken for more than a decade.
Pacific Link therefore has a long journey ahead before Canadian crude starts flowing through it.
Governments take a seat at the ownership table
Ottawa and Alberta will share equal ownership of the project, while Pembina Pipeline will participate as a private-sector investor.
Trans Mountain Corporation, the government-owned company behind the recently expanded Trans Mountain system, will lead development and eventually operate Pacific Link.
Indigenous communities will be offered a minimum 10 percent ownership interest, with financing available through federal and Alberta loan-guarantee programs.
Fort McKay First Nation Chief Raymond Powder told Reuters that his community was interested in potentially taking an equity stake.
Ownership opportunities, however, do not mean Indigenous support is universal.
Opposition has not disappeared
Canadian pipeline projects have a habit of becoming political marathons.
Previous proposals have encountered fierce opposition from environmental organizations and Indigenous communities, with some projects abandoned and others suffering lengthy delays and major cost overruns.
Pacific Link is already attracting similar scrutiny.
More than 130 Indigenous communities near potential routes in Alberta and British Columbia were consulted before the national-interest designation, according to Ottawa. Carney says further consultations will continue as officials determine the route, environmental protections, local contracting requirements and other conditions.
Some Indigenous leaders have criticized the speed of the initial consultation process and argued that communities were not given enough information or time to properly assess the proposal.
Environmental questions will also follow the project as Ottawa simultaneously promotes climate targets and greater oil production. Canada’s own national-interest assessment acknowledges that Pacific Link can be expected to increase emissions moderately, although the government argues that those effects must be weighed against the project’s economic and geopolitical benefits.
Trans Mountain has already shown what Asia can offer
Canada does have a recent example of what additional Pacific access can accomplish.
The expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline was completed in 2024, significantly increasing Canada’s ability to send crude from Alberta to the British Columbia coast and onward to overseas customers.
Demand has been strong enough that the system is already operating near its available capacity, according to Reuters.
Pacific Link would take that strategy much further.
For decades, Canadian oil producers could look south and find the customer responsible for buying the overwhelming majority of their exports.
Carney’s government is now betting tens of billions of dollars on making “look west” a considerably more attractive option.
Tighten the opening for faster impactMake the headline less promotional
