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The project would provide landlocked Western Canadian producers with long-desired access to markets beyond the United States. The U.S. currently buys virtually all of Canada’s oil exports, most of it at a steep discount.

But recent shipping data suggests demand from California for Canadian crude is rising, and experts say that state could end up taking up to half of the new export capacity from an expanded Trans Mountain.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tried to sell the pipeline to a divided public as a crucial link to Asia, amid domestic concerns over the mounting trade tussle with the United States.

Just days after Trudeau’s government agreed to buy the project, an Aframax tanker carrying more than 500,000 barrels of heavy crude left Kinder Morgan’s Westridge Marine Terminal and travelled to Long Beach, California, one of eight shipments to California in May.

Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press

Canadian crude exports from Westridge topped 2.5 million barrels that month, with every last drop shipped to California refineries, according to Reuters Eikon data. So far this year, 72.8 per cent of Westridge crude exports have gone to California.

The state currently imports the bulk of its crude from Canada, Ecuador, Colombia and the Middle East. But production is declining in Ecuador and Colombia, and Canadian crude is priced more attractively than Middle Eastern grades, making the Trans Mountain expansion a lucrative possibility for refiners.