New Canadian Oil and Gas Pipelines a $38 Billion Opportunity, Says Montreal Economic Institute

Building pipeline export capacity from west to east would benefit Canadians by diversifying trade, says the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI).

In a recent report, MEI found that if the proposed Energy East and Gazoduq/GNL Quebec projects had been built, Canada would have been able to export $38 billion worth of oil and gas to non-U.S. destinations last year.

“Based on the 2024 export numbers, this would have been equivalent to as much as 27.7 per cent of Canada’s oil and 15 per cent of natural gas,” said MEI senior policy analyst Gabriel Giguère.

Canada is already seeing the benefits of increased export capacity on a smaller scale.

The completion of the Trans Mountain expansion last year saw oil shipments off the West Coast to markets other than the United States dramatically increase by 59 per cent, according to Statistics Canada.

But those increased exports represent only about four per cent of Canada’s total oil production.

Building export capacity in Eastern Canada, especially for liquefied natural gas (LNG), could further increase the diversity of Canada’s energy trade, something that our allies are looking for, said Giguère.

“People want our natural resources. We saw during the pandemic South Korea, Germany, Poland [and] Japan asking for Canada’s LNG. The dynamic with the United States is shifting. It will be more appealing to look toward Canada who is still a reliable ally,” he said.

“We would be able to have more prosperity for Canada, more revenue for governments because they collect royalties that go to government programs. So, I believe everybody’s winning with these kinds of infrastructure projects.”

The MEI report noted that Energy East and GNL Quebec would have generated nearly $30 billion of capital investment for their construction.

“We would need a lot of workers to build an Energy East or GNL Quebec, and these are high paying jobs,” Giguère said.

Amid trade tension with the United States, the projects are seeing an increase in support.

In a recent poll released by Montreal-based La Presse, a majority of Quebecers supported both projects.

“It was interesting, we saw that 61 per cent of Quebecers were for the renaissance of a project like Gazoduq/GNL Quebec, with only 20 per cent against it,” Giguère.

Energy East has also seen an uptick in support, with 59 per cent of Quebecers in support, according to the La Presse poll.

“It’s pretty clear that there’s a big majority, or at least a very clear majority of support for both projects,” said Giguère.