PENTICTON — The federally owned Trans Mountain pipeline hit full capacity in June. Its chief executive said Tuesday that about two-thirds of the tankers leaving Burnaby already sail to Asia, and that most of the extra barrels now being forced through the same pipe will follow them.Mark Maki, speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference in Singapore, said Trans Mountain will add 90,000 barrels a day in the fourth quarter and another 210,000 barrels a day by the end of 2028. That would lift the line from 890,000 barrels a day to about 1.19 million.“About two-thirds of ships that leave the dock go to Asia and then as we expand, I would expect that most of that (expansion) will be going to Asia,” Maki said.China will remain the largest customer because Canadian heavy crude fits the refineries that want it, he said. He named India, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam as buyers likely to take more, and Thailand as a possible new one..Those numbers sit against a year of Eby telling British Columbians the existing pipe still had room, and that talk of another line was make-believe.“That pipeline is not at full capacity right now,” Eby said at the 2025 Western Premiers’ Conference. “Why wouldn’t we ensure that that public infrastructure was fully used first before dividing ourselves on a project where there is no proponent.”On October 6, 2025 he posted a video calling Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s proposal “Alberta’s fictional bitumen pipeline.”.The same month his government was already writing the opposite instruction.A briefing note dated October 16, 2025, obtained by the Western Standard under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and published April 2, carried the title “Action to Respond to Alberta’s Proposed Oil Pipeline.” Large passages were withheld under sections 12, 13 and 17. The lines that survived said Alberta was “keen to get the project approved in the current environment” and directed officials to “mount the counter case,” including with experts, opponents and studies of adverse impacts..Energy Minister Adrian Dix had to answer that reporting from the floor two weeks later. On April 15 he named the Western Standard during Question Period while defending the government’s pipeline position..Eby, meanwhile, remained consistent on his public line well into the winter. On November 28 he posted that Canadians needed governments focused on “real projects, not a fantasy pipeline with no investors.”.Things have changed quickly in the months that followed.Reuters reported in June the 890,000-barrel-a-day system went into apportionment that month. That is the industry word for more shippers wanting spot space than the line can move. Trans Mountain’s second-quarter results, released August 28, put average throughput at 840,000 barrels a day, or 94% utilization. Of 610 tankers loaded at Westridge Marine Terminal since the expanded system entered service May 1, 2024, the company said 65% headed to Asia.Canada’s oil output, already the world’s fourth-largest, is expected this year to exceed last year’s record 5.3 million barrels a day, the Canada Energy Regulator told Reuters.Maki told Bloomberg in the same Singapore swing that the question inside the company is now speed. “Everything that we do now is: can we go faster?” he said. He called Asia “the place to be.”.All of this comes as the “trade war” between Canada and the United States continues to escalate.Washington’s 50% tariffs on about $20 billion of Canadian goods have been in force since August 22. Ottawa’s matching 15%, 25% and 50% duties on $27.6 billion of US imports took effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Crude was largely left off the list, but the fight has reinforced the case for sending more Canadian energy to buyers who are not American.Ottawa and Alberta announced a separate one-million-barrel-a-day West Coast Oil Pipeline on July 2. The southern concept follows the existing Trans Mountain corridor to a new terminal at Roberts Bank in Delta. The ownership group includes Trans Mountain Corporation, the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission and Pembina Pipeline Corporation. A national-interest listing decision is targeted for October 1.
