Fading Canadian pipeline ambition
The revival of Keystone XL and Canada's tricky pipeline politics doomed Energy East
Canada's hopes of becoming a global energy superpower took a significant hit in October when TransCanada, the country's largest pipeline operator, unceremoniously cancelled the proposed Energy East pipeline. The C$15.7bn ($12.32bn) pipeline would have shipped 1.1m barrels a day some 4,500km (2,800 miles) to Canada's Maritimes, making it the country's longest pipeline, and one of the largest in the world. Energy East would have backed out some 0.75m b/d of imports—mostly from Africa and the Middle East—from Canada's import-dependent eastern provinces and helped achieve a long-held goal of Canadian nationalists to make the country self-sufficient in oil. But sometimes even the best laid plans
Also in this section
16 January 2026
The country’s global energy importance and domestic political fate are interlocked, highlighting its outsized oil and gas powers, and the heightened fallout risk
16 January 2026
The global maritime oil transport sector enters 2026 facing a rare convergence of crude oversupply, record newbuild deliveries and the potential easing of several geopolitical disruptions that have shaped trade flows since 2022
15 January 2026
Rebuilding industry, energy dominance and lower energy costs are key goals that remain at odds in 2026
14 January 2026
Chavez’s socialist reforms boosted state control but pushed knowledge and capital out of the sector, opening the way for the US shale revolution
