CALGARY — The Alberta government is making itself the official proponent of a new oil pipeline to Canada’s West Coast, part of its ongoing push for federal support of a major project that would expand the energy industry’s export capacity.

Premier Danielle Smith’s government plans to submit plans for the pipeline by next spring to the newly formed federal Major Projects Office, according to details announced on Wednesday. 

“We won’t see a proponent until we have the laws fixed, and so we’re prepared to be the proponent to get it to that point,” Smith said at a press conference.

The proposal comes as Smith seeks what she calls a “grand bargain” between Ottawa and the province’s oil and gas sector. Under it, oil producers would dramatically lower their on-site carbon emissions in exchange for a new pipeline that would give them greater access to Asian markets and reduce their dependence on U.S. refineries.

Finding the right path: The province hasn’t yet chosen a specific route, but it would likely begin in Edmonton and ship bitumen to a port in either Prince Rupert or Kitimat, B.C., a government official said. If built as planned, it would transport roughly one million barrels per day, more than the expanded 890,000-barrel-per-day Trans Mountain pipeline that came online in 2024. 

Three major pipeline companies—Enbridge, Trans Mountain and South Bow—will offer technical support to determine the design and proposed course. The province will use AI with the help of the Edmonton-based Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute to choose a specific route. 

To lead the design work, the province also appointed a 10-person technical advisory group that includes Cenovus executive chair Alex Pourbaix, former Enbridge CEO Al Monaco, and others. 

Alberta expects the initial designs to cost around $14 million. 

No (private) money, no problem: The proposal currently has no private-sector financial backers, which puts the province in the unusual position of putting forward its own multibillion-dollar energy project using taxpayer dollars. Once it’s completed those steps, it intends to sell the project to a private-sector operator, Smith said.

Wednesday’s move signals Alberta’s determination to push a new oil pipeline forward in the absence of a private proponent. It also speaks to the barriers facing companies that seek to build major energy projects, which have repeatedly run aground in Canada due to regulatory and legal challenges.

Canada’s largest oil and gas companies have said they need a range of policy changes before they would consider backing a major pipeline. A key requirement is for Ottawa to designate the project as being in the “national interest,” which it can now do through its Major Projects Office, led by former TransAlta CEO Dawn Farrell. 

Industry has also called on Ottawa to improve regulatory clarity, loosen its proposed oil emissions cap and remove its ban on oil tankers along the northern B.C. coast.