Canada’s oil pipelines to the U.S. slowed within hours of Trump’s tariffs, data show

The flow of Canadian oil to the United States slowed on three major pipelines Tuesday morning, hours after the start of U.S. tariffs on crude imports from Canada, according to Wood Mackenzie.

The U.K.-based data provider cites real-time monitoring of 90 per cent of the oil capacity crossing the Canada-U.S. border. Wood Mackenzie says it detected reductions on three major crude systems delivering Canadian crude to U.S. markets.

“The timing could indicate that the recently implemented policy may have at least some impact on Canada-to-U.S. deliveries, at least temporarily,” Wood Mackenzie North American crude market analyst Dylan White wrote in a report.

“It is unclear if the reductions were directly related to the new tariffs.”

The impacted pipelines include Southbow’s (SOBO.TO)(SOBO) Keystone system, Enbridge’s (ENB.TO)(ENB) Express pipeline from Alberta to Wyoming, and the TransMountain system. (TransMountain, which includes TMX, does not cross the U.S. border. The final leg of crude transportation to the U.S. West Coast is waterborne.)

“An hour before tariffs took hold, the TransMountain system was flowing at 838,000 bpd. Flows fell to 720,000 bpd by 3:00 am ET and 650,000 bpd by 10:00 am ET,” White wrote.

“System utilization was at approximately 77 per cent as of 2:00 pm ET, down from 91 per cent earlier in the day.”

Wood Mackenzie says Keystone’s pipeline utilization fell over 30 per cent at 2 p.m. ET on Tuesday, versus earlier in the day. At the same time, it says Enbridge’s Express utilization was at approximately 19 per cent, down from 67 per cent hours earlier.

Speaking at Enbridge’s annual investor day conference, CEO Greg Ebel told reporters that tariffs would need to be in place for years to meaningfully change the amount of Canadian crude flowing south.

“It would take a very long time of sustained tariffs before you see changing trade patterns and flow patterns, just given the nature of where that product is going, largely to serve U.S. refineries,” he said on Tuesday.

However, last month, a senior executive at Calgary-based oil producer Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO)(CVE) said tariffs could prompt destination changes for crude on the TransMountain system, which allows shipments of Canadian oil to non-U.S. markets.

“We believe that demand at the dock will be robust for folks that want to come and pick it up there, and take and move it to the best global location,” Geoff Murray, executive vice-president of commercial for Cenovus, said on a Feb. 20 conference call with stock market analysts.