{"id":954576,"date":"2026-11-01T17:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T17:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/954576\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T17:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T17:26:10","slug":"the-world-wants-our-oil-heres-a-quick-way-to-get-it-to-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/954576\/","title":{"rendered":"The world wants our oil. Here’s a quick way to get it to them"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Alberta\u2019s referendum behind us, attention has turned to the Pacific Link pipeline. Listed as a project of national interest on October 1, the line would run roughly 1,250 kilometres from Bruderheim, Alta., to a terminal at Roberts Bank near Delta, B.C., carrying one million barrels a day. Shovels could turn as early as September 2027 but first oil is not expected until the early-to-mid 2030s.<\/p>\n

Not everyone is content to wait.<\/p>\n

Global oil prices have pushed above US$100 a barrel, yet Western Canadian Select is trading at a discount of over US$30 a barrel to West Texas Intermediate as of late October. Pipelines running south and west are getting full. The gap is not only a producer problem; it is lost royalties and corporate taxes for Canadians.<\/p>\n

To move more oil to Asia while new pipe is built, Alberta-based producer Strathcona Resources has floated the idea of shipping 250,000 barrels a day by rail to Prince Rupert. It is not a substitute for a pipeline \u2014 rail costs more \u2014 but it is complementary and faster.<\/p>\n

Adam Waterous, Strathcona\u2019s chair, is a big fan of trains; he\u2019s the same guy pitching the idea of reviving passenger rail service between Calgary and Banff. Crude-by-rail is not novel; Canada Energy Regulator data show it peaked when pipeline capacity was tightest, around 2020.<\/p>\n

What is new is the destination. Loading tankers at Prince Rupert for Asian markets would require lifting, or at least creating exemptions under, the 2019 Oil Tanker Moratorium Act. That law bars vessels carrying more than 12,500 metric tonnes of crude from loading or unloading in northern B.C. waters, including the approaches to Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n

The ban could have been addressed this summer when then-premier David Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney signed the Canada-B.C. Cooperative Prosperity Agreement. British Columbia acknowledged federal jurisdiction over interprovincial pipelines and agreed not to obstruct Pacific Link, in exchange for an annual royalty from the operator and an environmental liability and emergency trust fund. Port and LNG investments were also part of the package. The northern tanker ban on crude remained untouched.<\/p>\n

Federal Conservatives have long opposed the ban, noting that double-hulled tankers operate routinely and safely at other Canadian ports. Calgary MP David McKenzie\u2019s private member\u2019s bill to repeal it reached second reading this week. MPs voted along party lines; only Conservatives supported sending it to committee. The bill died.<\/p>\n

Politics, not merely engineering, still sets the outer limits.<\/p>\n

I spoke with Jean-Jacques (JJ) Ruest, chair of the Prince Rupert Port Authority board, about the logistics. Ruest, from Montreal, joined the board in December 2024 and became chair in July. He was CN Rail\u2019s CEO from 2018 to 2022 \u2014 and comes to this role with unique expertise in freight rail, intermodal, ports and supply chains.<\/p>\n

He places the port clearly: Vancouver is Canada\u2019s largest, Montreal second, Prince Rupert third. It has deep water, the shortest shipping route to Asia, and handles tens of billions in annual trade. CN located its terminus there because the site offered the deepest water available on the West Coast and could be reached along relatively flat land along the Skeena River, avoiding the steep grades of the Rockies.<\/p>\n

The port exports grain, thermal and metallurgical coal, wood pellets, butane and propane \u2014 high-volume commodities that generate substantial GDP. Infrastructure is less developed than in Vancouver or Montreal, Ruest notes, so the core mandate is to enable trade, focus on exports, and help more infrastructure get built so more Canadian commodities leave from Prince Rupert.<\/p>\n

He is precise about governance. \u201cIt is a public federal mandate \u2014 from the federal government, which is our owner, my single shareholder \u2014 and the federal government is very much focused on export, much more so than import.\u201d<\/p>\n

The port is never the proponent, he adds. Companies that want to increase trade come to the authority; its job is to facilitate. \u201cIn the case of crude, there\u2019s a tanker ban and the port authority is not the one deciding whether the tanker ban is on, is off, or can be modified. We take our guidance or orders from our owner, and our owner is the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

I ask, given his CN experience with crude-by-rail, whether the idea would be viable if the ban were lifted.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need a place to load your railcars,\u201d he replies, \u201cand you need a place to offload \u2026 and because of the historical amount of crude by rail that\u2019s been done in the last 10 years, there\u2019s quite a number of places where you could load a unit train in Alberta and Saskatchewan. There\u2019s also a large existing fleet of tank cars in North America that could move crude by rail within the current regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

CN has publicly said it has latent capacity on the corridor to Prince Rupert, as it does to Vancouver. Loading points, tank cars and railroad capacity therefore exist; what\u2019s missing is a terminal to receive the unit trains and the jetties to load ocean tankers. Those could be built by a private proponent on a brownfield or greenfield site. Some experts I\u2019ve spoken to suggest it would take 24\u201330 months from a change in the tanker rules to first shipments.<\/p>\n

At this point, Ruest reminds me, the Strathcona proposal is not a project; it\u2019s a concept. Any project would involve local First Nations \u2014 each nation, he explains, would decide what they want to do, whether they want to support or oppose, whether they want to be participating in a benefit from the construction, or they want to become an equity owner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have a crude mandate,\u201d he repeats. \u201cWe have a trade mandate \u2026. We\u2019re expected to try to enable whatever Canadian exporters want to do. In the case of crude, yes, there is a restriction, and that restriction is in the hands of the federal government. It\u2019s not for us to weigh in one way or another.\u201d If the ban is removed, the port could enable the export of crude, as it does other commodities.<\/p>\n

Point taken.<\/p>\n

There is, perhaps, a potential wildcard. British Columbia\u2019s premier-elect, Lorne Doerkson, has already signalled support for Pacific Link and said among his first calls would be to the prime minister and Alberta\u2019s premier to advance it. A Conservative majority in Victoria may create political space for Ottawa to consider an exemption limited to Prince Rupert, or a broader reconsideration of the ban. That could tilt the debate.<\/p>\n

There is, of course, much still to speculate about. Whether Doerkson\u2019s majority changes the political math enough for Carney to reopen the ban, even for a limited Prince Rupert exemption, is one question. Whether the federal government treats a privately financed rail-to-tidewater concept as worth the political cost is another.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, though, the decision rests with the federal Cabinet. Mark Carney \u2014 a middle power leader of an oil-producing nation \u2014 has presented himself as practical and focused on growth. Whether that extends to maximizing Canadian crude exports to markets that want them \u2014 while new pipelines are still a few years away \u2014 remains an open question.<\/p>\n

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