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OTTAWA — The Liberal government will announce whether it will push ahead with the Trans Mountain expansion project Tuesday, a decision that comes as rising oilsands production threatens to put ever more stress on Canada’s overcrowded pipeline system.

The decision, expected after cabinet ministers meet Tuesday morning, also comes as two other crucial conduits — the Line 3 and Keystone XL projects — languish in the U.S. legal and regulatory systems, leaving oil producers with few other options to get their barrels to market.

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A decision to move ahead with the expansion on Trans Mountain would eventually provide at least some respite for Western oil producers, who have suffered low oil prices due to a shortage of takeaway capacity out of northern Alberta.

Still, analysts expect that increasing oilsands production next year could force a record number of barrels onto rail cars, prolonging financial pain in the oilpatch well before any new pipeline projects come online. Canada could be shipping as much as 500,000 barrels per day of oil by rail car next year, according to a recent estimate by IHS CERA in Calgary, or roughly one out of every nine barrels produced in the country. In 2016 that ratio was closer to one in every 43 barrels produced in Canada.