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Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s bid to increase the province’s crude oil exports by purchasing more rail cars is unlikely to result in more oil-transporting trains on B.C. tracks. Notley announced in a speech she delivered in Ottawa this week that the province would buy trains to move an extra 120,000 barrels of crude oil by rail starting in 2019, in an attempt to deal with an oil price differential that is hurting producers. A spokesperson from Notley’s office couldn’t say how much of the oil would be transported through B.C. “Although we would anticipate the majority of it going to the Gulf Coast, we would send oil where we’ll get the world price for it,” said Kate Toogood, in an email. However, Sven Biggs, a climate campaigner with Stand.earth, said it’s his organization’s understanding that almost all oil transported by rail in Canada goes to the U.S. Midwest and Gulf Coast, and any cars added by the province of Alberta would head in the same direction. “It’s very unlikely any of that oil would come through British Columbia,” he said. The National Energy Board says crude-by-rail exports from Canada rose to a record 269,829 barrels per day in September. […]
