The federally owned line to the coast moved 840,000 barrels a day in the second quarter. Nominal capacity is 890,000, which makes the second quarter 94% utilization.
Key facts
- Trans Mountain reported that it moved 840,000 barrels a day in the second quarter against 890,000 nameplate capacity, or 94% utilization.
- Revenue was $808 million against $719 million a year earlier, and net income was $138 million against $150 million.
- The line paid $450 million to the Government of Canada in interest and dividends in the quarter.
- Almost two thirds of the oil on the line goes to Asia by tanker, and 234,000 barrels a day went to Washington State in the second quarter, according to the company.
- Planned expansions of about 90,000 and 210,000 barrels a day would lift capacity to roughly 1.19 million.
A year earlier the same quarter ran 703,000 barrels a day. So the line added roughly 137,000 barrels a day of throughput in twelve months. Revenue came in at $808 million against $719 million a year ago. Net income slipped to $138 million from $150 million, which the company ties mainly to higher depreciation and amortization, $281 million against $219 million.
Ottawa took $450 million out of it this quarter
The number that should get more attention is the $450 million paid to the Government of Canada in interest and dividends in the quarter. That is real money moving from an Alberta resource, through a pipeline the federal government owns, into federal accounts.
A return on a capital asset is fair. The narrower point is this. The public conversation about this line has spent years fixed on what it cost to build. It has spent almost no time on the fact that the owner is now collecting from it, quarter after quarter, while the province that supplies every barrel debates toll decision mechanics in a regulatory proceeding.
Ownership determines who books the upside. Alberta produces the crude and carries the environmental and political cost of producing it. The dividends land somewhere else. Call it an ownership structure rather than a grievance. Somebody chose it deliberately.
Almost two thirds of the oil goes to Asia by tanker
Almost two thirds of the oil on the line goes to Asia by tanker. Another 234,000 barrels a day went south to Washington State in the second quarter.
That split is the entire argument for the project, finally showing up as numbers instead of forecasts. For decades Alberta crude had one serious buyer, and a single buyer sets the price. Every barrel that crosses the Pacific is a barrel priced by competition rather than by proximity.
The discount has not vanished and it will not vanish, because pipeline capacity is finite and quality differentials are real. But the shape of the market has changed, and the people who said egress was the whole problem have their evidence.
The next 300,000 barrels come cheaper than the first million
Two capacity expansions are already mapped. About 90,000 barrels a day is expected by the end of 2026 through flow improver chemicals, which is closer to a refinement than a construction project. A further 210,000 barrels a day is targeted by the end of 2028 through new pipe segments and pump station upgrades.
Add those up and the line goes from 890,000 barrels a day to roughly 1.19 million without a new right of way, without a new route and without another decade of hearings. Incremental capacity is the cheapest capacity in the country. The hard part was building the corridor. Everything after that is engineering.
Anyone arguing about whether Canada should build another export line should be asked first why the existing one is being expanded by chemistry and pump curves rather than by policy.
Using exports as retaliation fails the arithmetic
The company’s chief executive described the idea of using energy exports as retaliation in trade disputes as “mutually assured destruction”, and the numbers back the phrase. In 2025 Canada exported 4.3 million barrels a day of crude, and about 90% of it went to the United States, according to the Canada Energy Regulator. A country that cuts that flow to make a point cuts its own revenue first and hardest.
The asset works. It runs close to full and is expanding, and it pays its owner.
Trans Mountain expects to add about 90,000 barrels a day by the end of 2026 and a further 210,000 by the end of 2028.
Related from Alberta Tribune: Alberta Owns the Barrels and Ottawa Negotiates What They Cost
