Trump says he wants Keystone XL Pipeline to be built

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he wanted the Keystone XL Pipeline built and pledged easy regulatory approvals for the project, which was opposed for years by environmentalists before its permit was revoked by the Biden administration.

The pipeline was first proposed in 2008 to bring oil from the Alberta oil sands to U.S. refiners and was halted in 2021 by then-owner TC Energy Corp after former Democratic President Joe Biden revoked a key permit needed for a U.S. stretch of the project.

In a social media post on Monday, Trump urged the company that was building the pipeline to “come back to America,” saying his administration would offer easy approvals and an almost immediate start.

“The Trump Administration is very different (from the Biden administration) – easy approvals, almost immediate start! If not them, perhaps another Pipeline Company. We want the Keystone XL  Pipeline built,” Trump said in the post.

Trump’s post did not name a company and only referred to the one that was building the pipeline earlier.

TC Energy spun off its oil pipeline business in October last year into a new company named South Bow Energy.

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Opponents of that pipeline had fought its construction for years, saying it was unnecessary and would hamper the U.S. transition to cleaner fuels.

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The Keystone XL pipeline was expected to carry 830,000 barrels per day of Alberta oil sands crude to Nebraska, but the project was delayed due to opposition from U.S. landowners, Native American tribes and environmentalists.

Trump had approved a permit for the line in 2017, but it continued to face legal challenges that hampered construction.

Biden had committed to canceling the project during his 2020 campaign and revoked the permit soon after taking office in 2021.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took to social media on Tuesday to show her support for reviving the Keystone XL pipeline, posting on X the project “should have never been cancelled” and saying let’s “focus on getting shovels in the ground right away!”

A spokeswoman for South Bow Corp., the oil pipeline operator spun off from TC Energy Corp. last fall and now the owner of the existing Keystone system, says the company has “moved on” from the XL expansion project.

“We continue to engage with customers to develop options to increase Canadian oil supplies to meet growing demand,” Katie Stavinoha said in an email.

The Keystone XL project — a 1,900-kilometre pipeline that would have run from northern Alberta to the major U.S. crude storage hub at Cushing, Okla., and then on to Gulf Coast refineries — was first proposed during the Obama administration, which rejected it on environmental grounds.

It was then revived under the first Trump administration, before former president Joe Biden killed it again by revoking the pipeline’s permit on his first day in the White House in 2021.

With files from The Canadian Press.