TMX CEO suggests pipeline capacity should be maximized before another one built

CTV News Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos sits down with Trans Mountain CEO Mark Maki to discuss maximizing current infrastructures.

Trans Mountain CEO Mark Maki says the federal government’s focus should be on maximizing TMX’s existing capacity first, before greenlighting any new pipeline projects.

“My personal belief is that you look at the optimization of your existing pipelines, it’s the first thing you do, because it’s the easiest thing to do,” Maki said in an interview with CTV News Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos in Burnaby, B.C., on Tuesday.

“It’s much harder to build another TMX somewhere,” he added. “And for that reason, optimize the kit that you have, which you can do in steps over time, and then add capacity as it’s needed, and then you have time to evaluate the bigger issue, which is, do you need another pipeline somewhere?”

Maki’s comments come as Prime Minister Mark Carney makes his push to strengthen energy and economic ties with Europe, revealing Tuesday that the federal government will imminently unveil major new investments in port infrastructure.

The prime minister has pledged to make Canada an “energy superpower,” and said in an exclusive interview with Kapelos in May that he would support building a new pipeline if the consensus exists for one.

Maki said there are “very doable, very cost-effective” ways to increase the government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline’s capacity. Namely, he said, adding more horsepower to the existing infrastructure could boost oil shipments from about 890,000 barrels a day to nearly 1.2 million barrels a day.

“That involves pumps, motors in existing locations, maybe some new locations, and then power infrastructure to supply that, and maybe a little bit of pipe, TBD,” he said. “So, we’re working through that now.”

The Trans Mountain pipeline has been shipping oil from Alberta to the B.C. coast for more than 70 years. In 2018, the federal government made the controversial decision to buy it for $4.5 billion, before funding an expansion project to twin the existing 1,180-kilometre pipeline, at a cost that ballooned to $34 billion.

The project nearly tripled the pipeline’s capacity, with expanded operations beginning last May.

According to an analysis by Alberta Central chief economist Charles St-Arnaud, TMX has contributed to narrowing the discount at which Alberta oil is sold, leading to an extra $2 billion in revenue for the federal government.

The Carney government, meanwhile, has signalled it will start announcing approved so-called nation-building projects in the coming weeks.

“There’s a huge range of immediate opportunities with respect to critical metals and minerals, and there are medium-term opportunities with respect to all forms of energy, including LNG and hydrogen,” Carney told reporters, speaking alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin on Tuesday.

In June, Parliament passed Bill C-5 — dubbed the Building Canada Act by the Liberals — aimed at giving government sweeping new powers to approve major projects of national interest.

When asked whether he believes an entirely new pipeline is feasible, Maki told Kapelos he does, but that the supply must exist to underpin it, adding “a lot of things have to line up for that to happen.”

“Like policy changes, there has to be a desire on the part of the private sector to actually invest in more production, and so the environment has to be right for that,” he said. “That’s really kind of the starting point in my mind, is there’s a will, and capital wants to be deployed to Canada.”

“And then you can start talking about ‘I need another pipeline,’” he also said, adding investors and capital are the necessary first step.

Boosting the current pipeline’s capacity, Maki said, would however be in the national interest, in his view.

“People are saying, ‘well, it’s not going to be economic, it’s not going to be utilized,’” he said. “We’re highly utilized today. We’ll be highly utilized tomorrow. We’ll be highly utilized 20 years from now. That’s not going to change.”

With files from CTV News’ Brennan MacDonald, Stephanie Ha and Rachel Aiello