Canada May Keep $23 Billion Trans Mountain Pipeline State-Owned
Canada may keep the trans mountain pipeline state-owned after its owner said there is merit in holding onto a strategically important asset. Elizabeth Wademan said the prior plan was to return it to private hands, but the market around the pipeline has changed as oil flows to Asia strengthen.
The government bought Trans Mountain from Kinder Morgan in 2018 for about $3.3 billion, and the expansion cost had swelled to about $23 billion by 2024. That gap leaves Ottawa deciding whether to sell now, after the asset has become a larger export route, or hold it and try to capture more of the upside.
Wademan Sees Full Value
Three times its original capacity, the expanded line now moves 890,000 barrels daily after launching in May 2024. Wademan said the pipeline is a strategically important asset and added that the project could be expanded further with more energy corridors.
"The prior narrative had been that this should be returning to private hands," she said at an event this week, as quoted by the Financial Post. "That was in a different market and that was in a different time."
China Takes More Coastal Oil
207,000 barrels daily went to China on average between the launch of the expanded pipe and spring 2025, while the United States took 173,000 barrels daily over the same period. By October 2025, as much as 70% of Canadian crude exported from the British Columbia coast was going to China.
That shift gives the federal owner a more valuable route into Asia just as the price of Canadian crude is inching closer to $90 per barrel. Fatih Birol said earlier this month that "The cost of missing this train will be incredible."
Ottawa Weighs the Asset
There is a lot of merit to holding onto the asset and realizing its full value, Wademan said this week. She also said, "Let’s look where we are, and look how important energy security is, and look how incredibly profitable this asset is; there’s a lot".
The sale debate now turns on whether Ottawa wants a one-time payout or a longer run of export revenue from a line that has already changed the country’s crude map. If crude shipments keep tilting toward China at the current scale, the privatization case gets harder to sell.
