The Trump administration is working with Canada on permits required for a proposed revival of part of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a White House official said on Tuesday.
The pipeline, proposed by Canadian pipeline company South Bow and its U.S. partner Bridger Pipeline, could increase Canada’s crude exports to the U.S. by more than 12% if it goes ahead.
The Keystone XL project, which was cancelled by the administration of former President Joe Biden, is fully permitted on the Canadian side, but a presidential permit would be needed for the pipeline to cross the Canada-U.S. border. State regulatory permits would also be required.
“The President’s entire energy team has been working diligently with our partners in Canada to work through the permitting process,” the official said.
The proposed project was one of the topics Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said he and Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S., Mark Wiseman, discussed with U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum during a meeting in Houston on Monday. Canada is framing the prospect of a new cross-border oil pipeline as a way it can help the U.S. achieve energy security even as the war in Iran disrupts supplies and raises prices for consumers, Hodgson said in an interview on Tuesday at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference.
“Yes, (the U.S.) are the largest producer of oil in the world, they’re at 12-13 million barrels per day. But they consume 20,” Hodgson said. “And they understand that Canada provides about 63% of that difference.”
President Donald Trump’s tariff wars and annexation threats have strained relations with Canada. But Trump has also repeatedly called for lower oil prices and many U.S. refiners depend on the roughly 4.4 million bpd of exports that Canada sends south of the border. Hodgson said he made it clear during the meeting that Canada is aggressively working to expand its oil exports to non-U.S. markets by completing a planned 300,000 bpd expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline that runs from Alberta to the Pacific Coast.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has been traveling the globe courting new customers for Canadian energy in an effort to reduce the country’s reliance on the U.S. market.
“What we need to do, as the Prime Minister has said, is not sell less to the United States. We need to sell more to other people,” Hodgson said.
(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Houston; Editing by Nia Williams)