Trump says he wants defunct pipeline Keystone XL back from the dead

CALGARY — U.S. President Donald Trump says he’d like to see the Keystone XL pipeline brought back from the dead, garnering an enthusiastic reception from Alberta’s premier but a tepid one from the company spun off from its erstwhile proponent.

Trump posted on his Truth Social platform Monday that the Biden administration “viciously jettisoned” the pipeline expansion that would have sent more oilsands crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast and that he wants to see it built.

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He wrote that if the defunct project that was the subject of fierce environmental opposition is revived, it would see “easy approvals” and an “almost immediate start.”

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith writes on X that the project never should have been cancelled, and that lower fuel costs for American families would be a big win.

In her post, Smith encouraged Trump to “scrap these inflationary tariff ideas” and focus on getting shovels in the ground.

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.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 25, 2025.

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The Canadian Press