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The U.S. has become a “monopoly buyer” of Alberta’s oil, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said at a speech in Toronto Monday. “We continue to urge Canadian decision makers to follow this example so we can have access to global markets from Canadian ports, supporting good Canadian jobs.”

Canada sent about 99 per cent of its crude exports to the U.S. last year with the remainder mostly going to the U.K., Italy and Spain from oil platforms off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, Statistics Canada data show. While the existing 300,000-barrel-a-day Trans Mountain line is the only export pipeline that connects to a Canadian port, nearly all of the crude it carries supplies refineries in Washington state.

New Markets

“Pipeline infrastructure to new markets is critical,” Sneh Seetal, spokeswoman for Suncor Energy Inc., Canada’s biggest oil company, said in a phone interview. “Expanded connection to the U.S. is critical but so is access to new markets.”

Another project that’s set to send more Canadian crude to the U.S. is Enbridge Inc.’s replacement and expansion of Line 3, which runs from Alberta to Superior, Wis. While construction is still awaiting the go-ahead from Minnesota, Enbridge chief executive officer Al Monaco said in September that the company is confident approval will be granted.

Meanwhile, a plan to expand Trans Mountain to 800,000 barrels a day by December 2019 could be delayed by nine months, the company warned last month. On Oct. 26, Kinder Morgan asked the National Energy Board for permission to start work as the company waited permits from the city of Burnaby, B.C., the end point of the line in Canada and a centre of opposition to the project.