Trump authorizes Bridger Pipeline Canada route from border to Wyoming

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order on Thursday authorizing bridger pipeline canada construction from the Canadian border to Wyoming. The permit gives Bridger Pipeline LLC the right to build, connect, operate and maintain pipeline facilities at the border, opening the way for a line designed to move more than 500,000 barrels of oil a day.

Bridger Pipeline LLC in Casper

Bridger Pipeline LLC, a private oil transportation company based in Casper, Wyoming, submitted its proposal to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality on Jan. 28. In that application, Bridger described the project as "a significant and meaningful investment in the U.S. energy economy." Tad True later said the order "brings our proposed crude project one step closer to reality."

Keystone XL route in Alberta

The route would partially revive the Keystone XL system, the only infrastructure in Canada that could supply enough oil to fill the Bridger line. Work on Keystone XL was halted in 2021 after former U.S. President Joe Biden revoked a key permit, leaving the project with a long record of protests, studies and court challenges behind it.

Bridger cited Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025 executive order declaring a national energy emergency in its application, which directed federal agencies to expedite production and transportation of domestic energy resources, including crude oil. The new authorization removes one federal barrier, but it does not answer the supply question that sits underneath the project: whether enough Canadian crude will move south to support a pipeline of this size.

South Bow and Prairie Connector

Calgary-based South Bow Corp. has separately approached farmers and ranchers in southwestern Saskatchewan to resurvey land along the original Keystone XL route. South Bow announced in March that it was soliciting binding commitments for long-term volumes on a 450,000-b/d pipeline it calls Prairie Connector, which would run from Hardisty, Alberta, to multiple U.S. delivery points.

Peter Tertzakian, deputy director of the ARC Energy Research Institute, said there is significant caution, if not outright skepticism, around whether the decree will actually lead to a pipeline being built. He said, "They’ve seen this movie before – they commit, then the whole th"

For Bridger, the immediate practical change is that the border facilities now have federal permission to move forward. For Canadian producers and landholders along the old Keystone XL corridor, the next signal will come from whether long-term crude commitments materialize for Bridger’s line or for South Bow’s Prairie Connector.