Can someone explain to me why Canada has to have this pipeline go through the United States? Why don't they build a pipeline to Vancouver or something?
The idea is that Western Canadian Crude trades at a discount to more widely known benchmarks like West Texas, due to a bottleneck in pipeline capacity. Hence, expanding pipeline capacity should reduce the spread and increase margins for the Athabasca tar sands.
There's an ongoing project called Trans Mountain that expands an existing dilbit pipeline from Alberta to near Vancouver. The approval process for that dragged on for so long that the federal government of Canada bought it out.
Trudeau is probably relieved at Biden's decision, since he no longer has to spend political capital selling the project at home.
I'd love to be a fly in Jason Kenney's office. I would probably get killed by chunk of his exploding head, though.
