Alberta is Canada's energy powerhouse.
In 2025, Alberta exported about 3.56 million barrels per day (bpd). There are numerous export expansions in the works including an expansion by Enbridge which will optimize its mainline oil pipe operations in Canada adding up to 150,000 bpd by 2026-2027 and potentially another 250,000 bpd by late 2028, and the TMX pipeline will see additional growth via an expansion beyond the existing 890,000 bpd to a "Phase 2" pump station expansion could add another 360,000 bpd by 2028.
Together, these changes will expand Albert's exports to about 4.35 million bpd by 2028.
President Trump has approved an expansion to the Bridger Pipeline from Albert to Wyoming that could add another 550,000 bpd to exports. The governments of Alberta and Canada are working on another pipeline to move Alberta oil to the West Coast of Canada that could see up to 1 million bpd more oil exported from Alberta by 2035.
If these planned pipeline expansions come to fruition, Alberta could be exporting about 5.9 million bpd day by 2035. That would make Alberta the third largest exporter of oil on the planet after Saudi Arabia and Russia, and ahead of the USA and Iraq, assuming the war in Ukraine ceases and Russia can again export oil as it did prior to the war.
For context, it is worth noting that in 2015 Alberta only exported 2.5 million bpd. If planned pipeline expansions and construction goes ahead, by 2035 it would be exporting 235% more oil that it exported two decades prior.
There is an independence movement in Alberta that has complained loudly that Alberta's economic potential has been purposely quashed by federal government policies that have seen the cancelation of pipelines and the implementation of climate change policies. This sentiment is widely shared by the majority of Albertans who want Alberta to remain in Canada. One would hope that the planned expansions of Alberta's oil exporting capacity noted above will go a very long way to address these concerns.
