OTTAWA: Trans Mountain Corp chief executive officer (CEO) expects its main pipeline to be nearly full in April with Asian buyers turning to Canada for crude as they grapple with severe supply disruptions from the Persian Gulf.
The pipeline has been running below its maximum capacity since it was nearly tripled to 890,000 barrels a day in 2024.
It reached 96% capacity in November, but volumes dropped in the following months.
“The expectation is we’ll be running close to full,” Mark Maki said in an interview. “Maybe people are test driving it a little bit with this current crisis.”
The expansion of the government-owned pipeline has opened up significant access to Asian markets for Albertan oil sands producers and their high-sulfur, dense crude. But the cost to ship oil on a spot basis on the pipeline is expensive relative to other options.
More than 60% of volumes off the pipeline are shipped to refineries in China.
The oil has partly displaced high-sulfur grades from the Middle East including from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, where supplies are curtailed due to the near shutdown of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
Many Asian buyers rely on the Middle East for more than three quarters of their oil supplies.
“It’s not a far reach to say, okay, a little more interest in Canadian oil because Canadian oil fits people’s needs and Canada’s a long term stable supply partner,” Maki said.
Trans Mountain has begun a new venture to expand capacity further to about 1.19 million barrels a day by 2028. —Bloomberg
