Canada and Alberta announce new Pacific oil pipeline to reduce reliance on US and expand Asia exports

The announcement

Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith stood together in Calgary on Thursday to launch a major new oil pipeline project, declaring it was time to move beyond months of political wrangling and compromise. The project will carry 1 million barrels of crude per day from the oil-sands region of northern Alberta to the Pacific coast of British Columbia, giving Canada's energy industry direct access to Asian buyers. Construction could begin as early as September 2027, though no final cost estimate has been fixed; the Alberta government has put the potential range at C$35.2 to C$43.7 billion.

We've agreed the time for action is now.

Route and partners

The pipeline will shadow the existing Trans Mountain corridor before diverting to a new terminal on the southern BC coast. This routing abandons a previously favoured northern path that would have required overturning a federal tanker ban, a move First Nations and British Columbia had declared unacceptable. The federally owned Trans Mountain Corporation and the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Corporation will be the majority owners, while Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline holds a 10 percent stake during construction, with an option to raise its share to 20 percent after the line enters service.

The world is asking Canada to step up and provide stable, democratic and reliable energy supply that countries around the world are looking for.

Political and environmental bargain

Carney shuttled between British Columbia and Alberta to finalise more than C$150 billion in side investments, including a port expansion in Vancouver, power infrastructure for a new LNG terminal and fresh protections for the endangered southern resident killer whale. He confirmed the tanker ban on the northern BC coast remains in place and pledged a meaningful ownership stake for Indigenous communities. BC Premier David Eby, who had earlier resisted the pipeline, said he had secured government guarantees and would not go to court to fight the project.

Trade and economic drivers

Both leaders framed the pipeline as a response to President Donald Trump's protectionist trade policies and the need to shield Canada's economy from over-reliance on the US market. Carney wants to double non-US exports within a decade; Smith sees a path to raising Alberta's output to 8 million barrels per day. Alberta is holding a public vote in the autumn on whether to hold a referendum on leaving Canada, adding domestic political urgency to the deal. The province's estimates suggest the pipeline could lift Canada's real GDP by more than 0.6 percent annually into the 2040s.

The best route for a new pipeline is one that goes through one that already exists, south through the Trans Mountain corridor, to our Pacific Coast, the gateway to the world's fastest-growing markets.