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\t<\/a><\/p>\n\t The timing is unfortunate. A decade ago, the Energy East project did, in fact, make economic sense only to collide with a recalcitrant Quebec. If Quebec killed Canada\u2019s last pipeline dream, this one looks likely to die at the feet of cold, hard numbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The proposed Northwest Coast Oil Pipeline would cost $20 billion, in Alberta Premier Danielle Smith\u2019s estimation. At such sums, there are only two companies with the wherewithal to take on the job: Enbridge and TC Energy spinoff<\/a> South Bow. Both have remained mum throughout the Alberta-Ottawa agreement and its resulting political noise. Their silence is likely a bit of corporative discretion, an important thing when billions in shareholder value are potentially at stake.<\/p>\n In a land where the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion cost more than six times initial estimates, even $20 billion risks being delusional. Regardless of the actual figure, it won\u2019t be cheap to ship a million barrels a day westward, which proponents say is crucial to avoid choke points in the country\u2019s oil infrastructure, already near capacity.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet there are far less expensive alternatives to accommodate what S&P Global estimates will be a 600,000-barrel-a-day increase of Alberta\u2019s oil bounty by 2030. Optimizing the existing Trans Mountain pipeline alone could increase<\/a> its capacity by 360,000 daily barrels for $4 billion at most, according<\/a> to Trans Mountain CFO Todd Stack. Enbridge\u2019s mainline expansion, announced<\/a> in March 2025, will add another 150,000 barrels for $2 billion. Together, that\u2019s 510,000 extra barrels a day for $6 billion. No new pipeline needed.<\/p>\n The prospect of Venezuelan hydrocarbons replacing Canadian-sourced ones complicates things further. \u201cI probably got more bullish on a pipeline over the last six weeks just from watching the U.S.,\u201d Andrew Leach, an energy economist at the University of Alberta, told me. However, as Leach points out, an influx of Venezuelan oil won\u2019t hurt Canada as much as the potential flight of capital away from Canada should U.S. oil companies instead pump money into the South American country. If anything, this makes building a new pipeline more difficult.<\/p>\n Energy East made sense in 2016, in that the bulk of the proposed 4,600-kilometres pipeline from<\/a> Hardisty, Alta., to Saint John, N.B., was already in the ground. Originally set to come online in 2018, it would have benefitted from over seven years of oil toll revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet Energy East died in 2017 after Quebec balked, and though the province has since softened<\/a> its anti-pipeline stance, the math has only gotten worse in the interim. Put another way, on what planet does it make sense to spend at least $20 billion on a new pipeline when you can just make the existing ones bigger for a fraction of the price\u2014particularly when a barrel of Alberta oil is going for about $68?<\/p>\n
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