However, Ms. Smith also clarifies that her government does not wish to directly subsidize a cross-border pipeline project, preferring instead to find ways to mitigate financial risks in the context of a possible private sector investment.
“We are looking to establish links with the United States, to see if they are ready to help us transport more products to the United States,” Ms. Smith told reporters on Monday during a event held in Leduc County, Alberta.
“Perhaps, to de-risk the project, we should have an American partner, an American pipeline construction company, partner with our companies here,” she added.
“We don’t think the best way to do this is to invest public money, but we think there are other things we can do to change the risk profile.”
Canada’s main oil and gas producing province wants to expand its access to pipelines to the United States following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
Mr. Trump has generally been a strong supporter of oil and gas.
During his first term, Mr. Trump supported TC Energy’s Keystone XL pipeline project, which would have transported oil from Alberta to the United States, but which was abandoned when President Joe Biden revoked his permitted for environmental reasons.
TC Energy no longer owns the Keystone pipeline system, having spun it off into a separate company called South Bow, but some industry observers question whether the project could be revived.
In an interview with The Canadian Press last week, TC Energy President and CEO François Poirier indicated that the Alberta government had contacted the Calgary pipeline company to see if the Keystone XL project could be revived or if there were other ways to increase Alberta’s oil and gas export volumes to the United States.
Last week, a South Bow spokeswoman did not say whether the company was interested in reviving the Keystone project, but said South Bow “supports efforts to transport more Canadian crude oil to meet the American request.
In 2020, the Alberta government of former premier Jason Kenney agreed to invest approximately $1.5 billion in equity in the Keystone XL project to revive the stalled pipeline project.
In recent years, new pipeline projects have become extremely controversial. High-profile projects, such as the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and the Coastal GasLink pipeline, have been marred by environmental and indigenous protests as well as budget overruns.
Record oil production
Smith said there are many ways to boost Alberta’s oil and gas exports to the United States, without having to “put money on the table.”
“There are many ways to use existing rights of way, access to existing pipelines, to increase exports, whether through loops, compression or twinning of a line on a pipeline existing,” she explained.
“So we are studying all these options,” she expressed.
Smith said the province wants to give pipeline companies confidence that any capacity increases will be in line with growth in Alberta’s oil production.
Since the start of the year, Alberta oil production for 2024 has reached record levels, thanks to the start of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. The project, which cost $34 billion to build, tripled the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline, adding 590,000 barrels of oil per day to shipping capacity from Alberta to the west coast of British Columbia. British.
Analysts say Alberta’s year-over-year growth in oil production of 100,000 to 300,000 barrels per day will continue until 2025, and Smith has already hinted the province could double production of oil by 2050.
Earlier this month, Calgary-based Enbridge announced it had begun discussions with customers about expanding its mainline pipeline system to handle the volumes growing Canadian oil production.
The Enbridge Mainline is the largest oil pipeline system in North America. It transports crude oil from western Canada to markets in the eastern part of the country and the American Midwest.
The company emphasized that it is considering a small expansion that would add additional capacity along the existing pipeline network.
