Even without Keystone XL, U.S. set for record Canadian oil imports

Reuters By Nia Williams, Devika Krishna Kumar

Jan 22 2021

CALGARY/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Keystone XL pipeline project may be dead, but the United States is still poised to pull in record imports of Canadian oil in coming years through other pipelines that are in the midst of expanding.

U.S. President Joe Biden canceled Keystone XL’s permit on his first day in office Wednesday, dealing a death blow to a long-gestating project that would have carried 830,000 barrels per day of heavy oil sands crude from Alberta to Nebraska.

Environmental activists and indigenous communities hailed the move, but traders and analysts said U.S.-Canada pipelines will have more than enough capacity to handle increasing volumes of crude out of Canada, the primary foreign supplier of oil to the United States.

Currently, Canada exports about 3.8 million bpd to the United States, according to U.S. Energy Department data. Analysts expect that to rise to between 4.2 million and 4.4 million bpd over the next few years. Pipeline expansions currently in progress will add more than 950,000 bpd of export capacity for Canadian producers before 2025, according to Rystad Energy.

Canada’s Energy Regulator says there is enough capacity currently to export more than 4 million bpd to the United States.

Biden’s administration has set a goal of moving towards decarbonization and reducing the country’s reliance on oil and gas and cutting harmful air pollutants. Most of the nation’s energy still comes from fossil fuels.

“Whatever limited benefit that Keystone was projected to provide now has to be obviously reconsidered with the economy of today,” said Gina McCarthy, Biden’s leading domestic climate policy coordinator at the White House. Even without Keystone, however, the United States now relies on Canada for more than half of its imported oil. Several of the lines carrying that crude are in the midst of expansions.

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