{"id":841682,"date":"2026-08-02T04:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T04:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/841682\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T04:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T04:08:14","slug":"canadas-enbridge-postpones-plans-for-2nd-phase-of-mainline-oil-pipeline-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/841682\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada’s Enbridge postpones plans for 2nd phase of Mainline oil pipeline expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge \u200chas postponed the 250,000-barrel-per-day second phase of its Mainline crude pipeline network, it said on Friday, partly because Canadian oil producers have not committed to significant output increases.<\/p>\n

The Mainline pipeline is Canada’s largest crude oil export pipeline and can already move 3 million barrels per day of crude from \u200bWestern Canada to markets in Eastern Canada and the U.S. Midwest.<\/p>\n

The \u200bsecond phase would have increased exports of Canadian crude to U.S. refineries.<\/p>\n

But Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel said the company will focus first on its 100,000 bpd Flanagan South Expansion \u200band its 50,000 bpd Southern Access Extension, which are smaller projects in scope.<\/p>\n

They will \u2060add capacity to two secondary \u2060pipelines that connect to the Mainline in Illinois and \u200ctransport crude to multiple U.S. refining centers and the Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n

Enbridge is soliciting contracted volumes for the two pipelines through commercial open season processes.<\/p>\n

Growing Canadian oil output<\/p>\n

Canadian oil production is growing and hit a record high of 5.1 million bpd on average last year.<\/p>\n

Expectations of further growth \u2060have in recent months spurred multiple proposals for additional export pipeline projects, including by South Bow and Bridger Pipeline to revive parts<\/a> of the former Keystone XL project. <\/p>\n

Enbridge has already committed to a first-phase Mainline expansion project, which would add \u200c150,000 bpd of capacity and be placed into service by 2027. <\/p>\n

The company had previously projected the second phase could be in-service as early as 2028. Ebel said Canada has a generational opportunity to expand its oil output as a result of federal government policy changes over the past year \u200band the rollback of some environmental rules.<\/p>\n

He also said that although agreements between the federal government and Alberta aimed at accelerating oilsands growth could \u2060have a major impact, most of the proposed changes remain non-binding and have yet to be enshrined into \u2060law.<\/p>\n

Enbridge does not expect Canadian oilsands companies to meaningfully boost production until there is more policy \u2060and regulatory \u2060certainty, said Colin Gruending, the company’s president \u200bof liquids pipelines.<\/p>\n

“Nor do we expect producers to be making binding FID-able commitments to new pipelines until then,” Gruending \u200bsaid, referring to final investment decisions.<\/p>\n

He \u2060said Enbridge may have been too quick to propose the Mainline phase two project, but that the company was confident the project will eventually be needed. <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Alberta and the federal government announced plans for a potential one million bpd oil pipeline to the British Columbia coast, but no decisions have been made to go ahead with either that \u2060project or the South Bow-Bridger proposal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge \u200chas postponed the 250,000-barrel-per-day second phase of its Mainline crude pipeline network, it said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-841682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}