Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Trucks loaded with joints of pipe intended to become the Keystone XL rumbled through Shaunavon in July, 2011. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
In his first term in office, President Donald Trump hosted executives from TransCanada Pipeline to the oval office in the first week of his administration, inviting them to build the Keystone XL pipeline and offering his presidential approval. Four years later, the only portions of the pipeline built were the Alberta portion, and a few metres at the Canada/US border. Difficulties getting approvals in Nebraska, and finally a judge in Montana who took bats, whooping cranes, climate change and a different pipeline operated by a different company into consideration of his judgement, stopped further development in the US. President Joe put the final nail in the coffin, signing an order cancelling the project literally within minutes of being inaugurated.
Along the way, the project had so scarred TransCanada that it changed its name to TC Energy. And last year it spun off its liquids pipelines division into South Bow, casting off the last vestiges of the Keystone debacle.
But not surprisingly, after causing a month of chaos in US governance and setting back Canada/US relations to its worst point since some Canucks and Brits burnt the Whitehouse, President Donald Trump is, yet again, calling for the pipeline to be built.
At 7 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 24, he posted the following on Truth Social, the social media company that he set up after being punted off of Twitter in the dying days of his first term.
He said:
Our Country’s doing really well, and today, I was just thinking, that the company building the Keystone XL Pipeline that was viciously jettisoned by the incompetent Biden Administration should come back to America, and get it built — NOW! I know they were treated very badly by Sleepy Joe Biden, but the Trump Administration is very different — Easy approvals, almost immediate start! If not them, perhaps another Pipeline Company. We want the Keystone XL Pipeline built!
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/114061816777959152
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has for many months been suggesting that the project could, and should be revived. It was a key point of her remarks to the Lloydminster Heavy Oil Show Sept. 11., 2024.
- 0088 WBPC_2025_30SEC_PROMO0088 WBPC_2025_30SEC_PROMO
- 0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion
- 0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs
- 0085 Turnbull snow removal call office0085 Turnbull snow removal call office
- 0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
- 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
- 0076 Latus only0076 Latus only
- 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
- 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
- 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
- 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
- 0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
- 0032 IWS Summer hiring rock trailer music
- 0022 Grimes winter hiring
- 0021 OSY Rentals S8 Promo
- 0018 IWS Hiring Royal Summer
- 0013 Panther Drilling PO ad 03 top drive rigs
- 0011
- 0006 JK Junior
- 0002 gilliss casing services0002 gilliss casing services
- 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
- 9001
But the obstacles are enormous. There is no project in the works right now. The proponent company has split. While the original plans are surely filed somewhere, the team who put them together are scattered to the winds. And the pipe, which spent the better part of a decade, open the the environment and slowly deteriorating, is long gone. After many years sitting exposed, much of it was returned to Regina for recoating. But even that took place many years ago. How trustworthy any remaining pipe would be is questionable, at best.
And since there have been no major pipeline projects like that in recent years, Evraz’s big-inch pipe mill in Regina has been idle for a long time now, again, with its workforce and their institutional knowledge scattered to the winds. The ability to spool up and start cranking out hundreds of kilometres of pipe would be a challenge, at best.
On the very same day, Trump promised to carry forth with blanket 25 per cent import tariffs on all Canadian products save energy, which would get a reduced rate of 10 per cent. The tariff scare has shaken Canadian politics and business to the core, and there’s been more talk about building pipelines in Canada than there has been in many years. But that talk largely focuses on two other defunct projects, then-TransCanada’s Energy East to the East Coast, and Enbridge’s Northern Gateway, to the West Coast. Much of the discussion in each of those cases revolves around getting Canadian oil production to anywhere but American markets, diversifying our sales and hopefully getting a much better world price for it. And it if not world price, at least a much lower discount. Building Keystone XL would be locking in even more production into the one market right now whose president has openly said he wants to use economic pressure to force Canada into becoming the “51st State.”
- 0088 WBPC_2025_30SEC_PROMO0088 WBPC_2025_30SEC_PROMO
- 0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion
- 0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs
- 0085 Turnbull snow removal call office0085 Turnbull snow removal call office
- 0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
- 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
- 0076 Latus only0076 Latus only
- 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
- 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
- 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
- 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
- 0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
- 0032 IWS Summer hiring rock trailer music
- 0022 Grimes winter hiring
- 0021 OSY Rentals S8 Promo
- 0018 IWS Hiring Royal Summer
- 0013 Panther Drilling PO ad 03 top drive rigs
- 0011
- 0006 JK Junior
- 0002 gilliss casing services0002 gilliss casing services
- 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
- 9001
And on the very same day of the pipeline post, Trump once again humiliated outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, calling him Governor Justin Trudeau. Again on Truth Social, Trump posted, “Today, President Emmanuel Macron of France joined me in the Oval Office to speak to the G7 Summit. The meeting was convened by Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada, the current chair of G7, to acknowledge the Third Anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine War – Which would have never started if I was President.”
So while Fox News ran a headline saying “Trump calls for company building Keystone XL Pipeline to return to America and ‘get it built'”, the realities and abilities to fire up that project once again have radically changed since 2020. Not only does the project not exist anymore, it no longer has a proponent. And many Canadians, whose jobs and mortgages are on the line right now under the tariff threat, could see giving Trump anything he wants as a betrayal.
Or, it could be the bargaining chip to end the tariff war once and for all.
- 0088 WBPC_2025_30SEC_PROMO0088 WBPC_2025_30SEC_PROMO
- 0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion
- 0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs
- 0085 Turnbull snow removal call office0085 Turnbull snow removal call office
- 0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
- 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
- 0076 Latus only0076 Latus only
- 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
- 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
- 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
- 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
- 0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
- 0032 IWS Summer hiring rock trailer music
- 0022 Grimes winter hiring
- 0021 OSY Rentals S8 Promo
- 0018 IWS Hiring Royal Summer
- 0013 Panther Drilling PO ad 03 top drive rigs
- 0011
- 0006 JK Junior
- 0002 gilliss casing services0002 gilliss casing services
- 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
- 9001