CALGARY — While recent political attention has focused on the announcement of Alberta’s new West Coast crude oil pipeline proposal, one energy executive says production growth will be the critical factor determining whether the project succeeds if Canada hopes to significantly expand energy exports over the next decade.“There are multiple Ps here, and the pipeline's the last one,” Enbridge President and CEO Greg Ebel told podcast host Amber Kanwar in Calgary on Thursday.His comments come just days after Alberta formally asked Ottawa to designate a proposed BC coast pipeline as a project of national interest.The proposed pipeline would move more than one million barrels of oil per day from Alberta to a deep-water terminal on BC's southwest coast, providing direct access to Asian markets.The southern corridor that the new pipeline would follow is largely the same as the existing Trans Mountain pipeline route.Premier Danielle Smith has said the project is part of Alberta’s broader energy goal of increasing oil production to eight million barrels per day within the next decade, and Ebel suggested discussions between governments and oil producers are already underway regarding future production growth, although he said exact details remain unclear..UPDATED: Alberta submits West Coast pipeline proposal, partners with Trans Mountain and Pembina.“It sounds like the governments of Alberta and Canada are in close consultation with my customers,” he said.“When they get the green light to produce millions of barrels more, then maybe we're gonna maybe even ship more east, who knows? Which would mean you have to double capacity of refineries in Eastern Canada, so maybe Quebec and Ontario are thinking about supporting the doubling of refineries. That would be incredible.”He did, however, add that public discussion has become overly focused on pipeline construction while overlooking the much larger challenge of expanding production.“If you don't get the production growth, you don't need the rest,” Ebel said.“And I think there's been a lot of focus on the pipes, and that's kinda ass-backwards.”While public discourse in Canada has increasingly focused on regulatory reform and major energy infrastructure projects in recent months, Ebel said producers are still seeking greater assurances from policymakers before committing billions of dollars in new investment, echoing concerns raised last month by Cenovus CEO Jon McKenzie, who argued governments need to incentivize production growth rather than penalize it.“The devil's in the detail,” Ebel said.“It's one thing to draw a line on a map. It's another thing to invest.”He pointed to estimates from Imperial Oil suggesting the infrastructure required to support large-scale production growth — including upstream development, pipelines, export terminals and associated facilities — could require approximately $100 billion in investment..Cenovus CEO blasts carbon tax, questions value of Pathways carbon capture project.“We cannot underestimate the size of this, and until there's not just clarity, but some element of certainty about what the regulatory structure is going to be for production, it's hard for producers to commit,” he said.When asked about critics of the joint Alberta-Ottawa announcement who argue additional export pipelines are not currently needed because existing infrastructure expansions such as Trans Mountain can accommodate current production levels, Ebel rejected the argument, noting the pipeline systems currently in operation remain heavily utilized.“Pipes are full. We've been in 12 months of apportionment, meaning we don't have enough space on our pipeline to serve all the requests from our customers,” Ebel said, adding the most important debate should focus on expected production levels a decade from now rather than today's capacity constraints.“I don't think we should focus it on the near term. It's the long term. We have always underestimated production in Western Canada.”He also challenged repeated forecasts from international organizations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), which has predicted declining oil demand, arguing global energy consumption continues to grow as billions of people seek access to affordable and reliable fuels.“The IEA has talked about declining demand for oil forever, and they've been wrong forever,” he said.“People want the product that we have, it's cheaper here, and they don't wanna be reliant on unstable environments. There's a reason why we're going to the coasts and [creating] fortress North America.”
