Article content continued

Bloomberg said that Russian crude supplies were gaining “market acceptance” in the U.S. as they competed with other imports. In one month in 2012, over 5 million barrels of oil arrived at West Coast ports, a 17-year high. (Most of it went to the refinery complex in Long Beach, California.)

After oil prices tanked in 2014 the trade fell off, but now oil is again touching multi-year highs and the Russians are back. Over the same span, Canada has struggled with three major domestic oil pipeline projects, two of which were cancelled.

It’s not like Russia is a preferred option. Until earlier this year, one of the Anacortes refineries had hoped its supply issues would be addressed by rail imports of U.S. crude oil from the Bakken shale in North Dakota. But in January, Washington State governor Jay Inslee rejected that plan.

In 2018, the Pacific Northwest remains just as geographically isolated as it was in 2012, and the sourcing issue still has not been solved. The next best hope for this geographically challenged region is the completion of Canada’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

The Andeavor refinery in Anacortes is already a delivery location for Kinder Morgan’s long-existing Trans Mountain Pipeline, via the Puget Sound spur line from Sumas. So is the Shell refinery at Anacortes. The Andeavor facility, however, is much more intimately tied up in the fortunes of Canada’s embattled pipeline expansion project that will triple the throughput. Andeavor happens to be among the companies who have given Kinder Morgan 15-to-20-year commitments to use this new capacity.