Strathcona Resources Ltd. chairman Adam Waterous has unveiled a proposal to move an additional 250,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude to the West Coast in under two years.
The plan involves shipping Western Canadian heavy crude along the existing CN Rail line to the Port of Prince Rupert, Canada’s third-busiest seaport, on British Columbia’s north coast.
Strathcona would construct a new marine export terminal at Prince Rupert modeled on the existing propane export facility already operated there by AltaGas.
Waterous said the company plans to present the proposal to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government as early as next week, framing it as a project of national interest.
A central obstacle to the plan is Canada’s 2019 Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which prohibits vessels carrying over 12,500 metric tons of crude from loading or unloading at ports along British Columbia’s northern coast.
Strathcona is seeking an exemption from Ottawa to that moratorium, which currently protects coastal areas stretching from Northern Vancouver Island to the Alaska border.
Strathcona is well-positioned to pursue such a project, as the company owns two rail terminals in Western Canada and already handles between 75,000 and 80,000 barrels per day by rail.
Waterous says that volume represents roughly 80 to 90 percent of all crude-by-rail shipments in Canada, giving Strathcona significant leverage in the country’s rail-based oil transport sector.
The proposal remains in its early stages, and Strathcona has not yet formally submitted the plan to the government for regulatory review or approval.
Indigenous leaders in the region remain firmly opposed to any changes to the moratorium, with chiefs maintaining that their communities will not accept modifications that would allow Alberta to export oil through Prince Rupert.
Prime Minister Carney had previously offered to fund a marine traffic risk assessment and committed to seeking Indigenous consent before approving any new pipeline plan in the region.
Canada is separately advancing a proposed one-million-barrel-per-day oil pipeline to the Pacific coast, which Carney has said Ottawa will designate as a project of national interest and push through a streamlined federal review process targeting completion by September 1, 2027.
The Strathcona rail-and-terminal route could deliver export capacity several years before that Pacific Link pipeline is expected to enter service, potentially narrowing the price discount on Western Canadian heavy crude in the interim.
That discount has already widened in recent weeks, adding urgency to efforts to secure new and diversified export outlets for Canadian oil producers.
