Industry confidence waning new pipeline will be deemed in national interest: survey

Prime Minister Mark Carney, right, signs an MOU with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

CALGARY — Confidence is waning in a new oil pipeline being chosen for a speedy federal review within the next year, a recent business sentiment survey from ATB Cormark Capital Markets suggests.

The investment firm canvassed executives representing 24 energy services firms, 22 exploration and production companies and 17 institutional investors on a range of topics between March 18 and April 1.

Forty-six per cent of respondents said they believed it was either highly probable or probable a new pipeline project would be added to the list of projects deemed to be in the national interest under federal legislation passed last year.

That’s down from the 52 per cent of respondents who expressed those views in a survey done between Aug. 28 and Sept. 11 of last year. That was more than two months before Alberta and Ottawa announced a sweeping energy accord laying out conditions for a new West Coast oil pipeline to move ahead.

“People are losing faith that the Liberal government will actually fix any of the structural problems they created in the last 10 years,” an unidentified executive at a publicly traded exploration and production company said in a write-in comment alongside the survey.

Another executive with a small private energy services company called for “less talk and more action” in a write-in comment.

“Not one project (in oil and gas) has come to fruition,” that executive wrote.

“Start building, or better yet just get out of the way of industry. We need to see clear and concise direction from the feds that will support new projects and expedite them.”

In the spring 2026 survey, 48 per cent of respondents said they believed the Liberal government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney would actively work toward expanding the energy sector, up from 37 per cent in the fall 2025 poll — an opinion of the prime minister that’s moving in a more positive direction than the prospect of a pipeline.

Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith signed a memorandum of understanding last November on a wide array of energy matters. It included a path toward deeming a new oilsands pipeline to the West Coast eligible for a streamlined review.

Such a project would ship up to one million barrels a day to the West Coast for export to Asia, reducing Canada’s reliance on the U.S. market. The Alberta government is preparing an application to the federal major projects office later this year, with the goal of a private-sector company eventually taking it over.

The pipeline moving ahead is tied to the building of the massive Pathways carbon capture and storage project, and an eventual increase in the industrial carbon price that would support its economics.

The ATB Cormark survey period ended just as a deadline set out in the MOU was set to pass for agreements on Pathways funding and implementation of the higher carbon price. Those pieces remain unresolved.

Patrick O’Rourke, managing director of institutional equity research at ATB Cormark, said the glum outlook on the pipeline question could be tied to the timing of the survey period, when there was anxiety around deadlines being met.

Despite the skeptical survey responses, there was much about the Alberta-Ottawa agreement that was constructive, he said.

“Even the fact that you brought the federal and provincial governments to the table together was something that was almost unfathomable a few years ago,” he said.

Survey respondents also expressed more optimism about a proposal to revive part of the defunct Keystone XL cross-border pipeline — pursued by South Bow Corp. alongside Bridger Pipeline LLC — than a West Coast pipeline that so far no private-sector company has expressed interest in building.

“We’re seeing a desire from both Canadian and U.S. counterparties to continue to grow our ability to move barrels north-south,” said O’Rourke.

“The challenges around moving them east to west are probably more significant.”

The spring 2026 survey captured a time of extreme commodity price volatility, driven by the war in the Middle East. Tanker shipments have been all but frozen through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which 20 per cent of the world’s crude supplies normally passes on its way to open sea.

Global crude prices have surged up to 70 per cent above pre-war levels, but have since fallen back somewhat.

Eighty-six per cent of exploration and production respondents reported an improving business outlook over the next six months, while 67 per cent of energy services respondents said they expected activity levels to pick up.

Meanwhile, 82 per cent of buy-side investor respondents said they’ve become more bullish toward energy over the past six months.

“A lot these businesses have business models that work very, very well at crude prices in the US$70 to US$75 (per barrel) range,” O’Rourke said.

“So I don’t think you need US$90 to US$100 crude in any sort of length here to make these businesses compelling investments.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2026.

Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press