Energy
Enbridge punches back on Line 5 challenge: ‘Nothing but counter-factual speculation’
This photo taken in October 2016 shows an aboveground section of Enbridge’s Line 5 at the Mackinaw City, Mich., pump station. The Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa wants a federal judge in Wisconsin to order the pipeline closed, fearing a rupture on its territory due to spring flooding. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-John Flesher
By James McCarten in Washington
Michigan joined the Line 5 legal fray unfolding just across state lines Wednesday as lawyers for Enbridge Inc. and an Indigenous band prepared to square off over whether the controversial cross-border pipeline should be shut down.
The stage is set for oral arguments Thursday in the Wisconsin capital of Madison as a federal judge contemplates whether to order the taps turned off and the pipeline’s contents purged to forestall a watershed-fouling rupture.
That hearing will now also include lawyers fighting a similar legal battle with Enbridge in Michigan, where Attorney General Dana Nessel has so far been thwarted in her three-year campaign to seal off Line 5 for good.
The Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, through whose northern Wisconsin territory the line runs, has filed a motion arguing that spring flooding along the riverbanks has rendered the risk of a breach too great to ignore.
Nonsense, Enbridge argues back in an opposition brief that takes direct aim at the band’s claims of a looming environmental emergency, as well as the “drastic remedy” its lawyers are requesting.
“Despite having to prove both liability and grounds for an injunction, the band has done neither. The motion must therefore be denied,” the brief reads, describing their argument as “alarmist” and “counterfactual speculation.”
“No release of oil is ‘ready to take place,’ ‘happening soon,’ or ‘real and immediate.'”
The 50-page filing includes among its exhibits an email exchange between Enbridge and the band’s natural resources officials to support its argument that the band has been unwilling to allow the company to do any remedial work.
“This court should contrast the evidence before it of Enbridge’s persistent efforts and overtures to reach a solution … with the band’s refusal to meaningfully engage or act.”
Even if the risk was high, shutting down the pipeline would not be the appropriate remedy, Enbridge says, pointing to a court-ordered contingency plan that spells out the steps it would take if the threat were indeed urgent.
“Enbridge will pre-emptively purge and shut down the line well in advance of any potential rupture,” the brief says, adding that the area remains under constant 24-hour video surveillance.
“Any flooding and erosion has not, and would not, catch Enbridge by surprise.”
Heavy flooding that began in early April washed away significant portions of the riverbank where Line 5 intersects the Bad River, a meandering, 120-kilometre course that feeds Lake Superior and a complex network of ecologically delicate wetlands.
The band has been in court with Enbridge since 2019 in an effort to compel the pipeline’s owner and operator to reroute Line 5 around its traditional territory — something the company has already agreed to do.
But the flooding has turned a theoretical risk into a very real one, the band argues, and it wants the pipeline closed off immediately to prevent catastrophe.
Line 5 meets the river just past a location the court has come to know as the “meander,” where the riverbed snakes back and forth multiple times, separated from itself only by several metres of forest and the pipeline itself.
At four locations, the river was less than 4.6 metres from the pipeline — just 3.4 metres in one particular spot — and the erosion has only continued.
Michigan, led by Nessel, has been arguing since 2019 that it’s only a matter of time before Line 5 leaks into the Straits of Mackinac, the ecologically delicate waterway where it crosses the Great Lakes.
“The alarming erosion at the Bad River meander poses an imminent threat of irreparable harm to Lake Superior which far outweighs the risk of impacts associated with a shutdown of the Line 5 pipeline,” she argues in her brief.
“Without judicial intervention, it is likely that this irreparable harm will be inflicted not only on the band, but also on Michigan, its residents, and its natural resources.”
The economic arguments against shutting down the pipeline — which carries 540,000 barrels of oil and natural gas liquids daily across Wisconsin and Michigan to refineries in Sarnia, Ont. — are by now well-known.
Its proponents, including the federal government, say a shutdown would cause major economic disruption across Alberta, Saskatchewan and the U.S. Midwest, where Line 5 provides feedstock to refineries in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
It also supplies key refineries in Ontario and Quebec, and is vital to the production of jet fuel for major airports on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, including Detroit Metropolitan and Pearson International in Toronto.
“The implications (of a shutdown) are significant — not only to Pearson airport, not only to the Detroit airport, but to our mutual economies,” Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said Wednesday on Parliament Hill.
Talks about possible contingency plans have been taking place, he added, though he hinted at something Enbridge and pipeline experts have been saying for years: there are no real alternatives.
“There’s been ongoing discussion,” Alghabra said. “But I can tell you that our focus is making sure that Line 5 continues operations.”
That was the idea behind a lengthy statement issued Tuesday by the Canadian Embassy, which warned of severe economic consequences as well as potential ramifications for bilateral relations were the line to close.
“The energy security of both Canada and the United States would be directly impacted by a Line 5 closure,” the statement said. Some 33,000 U.S. jobs and US$20 billion in economic activity would be at stake, it added.
“At a time of heightened concern over energy security and supply, including during the energy transition, maintaining and protecting existing infrastructure should be a top priority.”
Talks have been ongoing for months under the terms of a 1977 pipelines treaty between the two countries that effectively prohibits either country from unilaterally closing off the flow of hydrocarbons.
Nonetheless, the embassy’s statement and the Enbridge brief tacitly acknowledge that the prospect of a shutdown order is very real.
In Enbridge’s case, the brief pre-emptively asks the judge to grant a stay of 30 days, should an injunction be ordered, to give lawyers time to mount an appeal.
And if “this specific, temporary flood situation” results in a shutdown, the embassy says, Canada expects the U.S. to comply with the treaty, “including the expeditious restoration of normal pipeline operations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 17, 2023.
From the Canadian Energy Centre
Complementary production in Canada and the U.S. boosts energy security
The United States is now the world’s largest oil producer, but its reliance on oil imports from Canada has never been higher.
Through a vast handshake of pipelines and refineries, Canadian oil and U.S. oil complement each other, strengthening North American energy security.
Here’s why.
Decades in the making
Twenty years ago, the North American energy market looked a lot different than it does today.
In the early 2000s, U.S. oil production had been declining for more than 20 years. By 2005, it dropped to its lowest level since 1949, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
America’s imports of oil from foreign nations were on the rise.
But then, the first of two powerhouse North American oil plays started ramping up.
In Canada’s oil sands, a drilling technology called SAGD – steam-assisted gravity drainage – unlocked enormous resources that could not be economically produced by the established surface mining processes. And the first new mines in nearly 25 years started coming online.
In about 2010, the second massive play – U.S. light, tight oil – emerged on the scene, thanks to hydraulic fracturing technology.
Oil sands production jumped from about one million barrels per day in 2005 to 2.5 million barrels per day in 2015, reaching an average 3.5 million barrels per day last year, according to the Canada Energy Regulator.
Meanwhile, U.S. oil production skyrocketed from 5.5 million barrels per day in 2005 to 9.4 million barrels per day in 2015 and 13.3 million barrels per day in 2024, according to the EIA.
Together the United States and Canada now produce more oil than anywhere else on earth, according to S&P Global.
As a result, overall U.S. foreign oil imports declined by 35 per cent between 2005 and 2023. But imports from Canada have steadily gone up.
In 2005, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria together supplied 52 per cent of U.S. oil imports. Canada was at just 16 per cent.
In 2024, Canada supplied 62 per cent of American oil imports, with Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela together supplying just 14 per cent, according to the EIA.
“Light” and “heavy” oil
Canadian and U.S. oil production are complementary because they are different from each other in composition.
Canada’s oil exports to the U.S. are primarily “heavy” oil from the oil sands, while U.S. production is primarily “light” oil from the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico.
One way to think of it is that heavy oil is thick and does not flow easily, while light oil is thin and flows freely – like orange juice compared to fudge.
The components that make the oil like this require different refinery equipment to generate products including gasoline, jet fuel and base petrochemicals.
Of the oil the U.S. imported from Canada from January to October last year, 75 per cent was heavy, six per cent was light, and the remaining 19 per cent was “medium,” which basically has qualities in between the two.
Tailored for Canadian crude
Many refineries in the United States are specifically designed to process heavy oil, primarily in the U.S. Midwest and U.S. Gulf Coast.
Overall, there are about 130 operable oil refineries in the United States, according to the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.
The Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission (APMC) estimates that 25 consistently use oil from Alberta.
According to APMC, the top five U.S. refineries running the most Alberta crude are:
- Marathon Petroleum, Robinson, Illinois (100% Alberta crude)
- Exxon Mobil, Joliet, Illinois (96% Alberta crude)
- CHS Inc., Laurel, Montana (95% Alberta crude)
- Phillips 66, Billings, Montana (92% Alberta crude)
- Citgo, Lemont, Illinois (78% Alberta crude)
Since 2010, virtually 100 per cent of oil imports to the U.S. Midwest have come from Canada, according to the EIA.
In recent years, new pipeline access and crude-by-rail have allowed more Canadian oil to reach refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, rising from about 140,000 barrels per day in 2010 to about 450,000 barrels per day in 2024.
U.S. oil exports
The United States banned oil exports from 1975 to the end of 2015. Since, exports have surged, averaging 4.1 million barrels per day last year, according to the EIA.
That is nearly equivalent to the 4.6 million barrels per day of Canadian oil imported into the U.S. over the same time period, indicating that Canadian crude imports enable sales of U.S. oil to global markets.
Future outlook
Twenty-five years from now, the U.S. will need to import virtually exactly the same amount of oil as it does today (7.0 million barrels per day in 2050 compared to 6.98 million barrels per day in 2023), according to the EIA.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Harold Hutchison
Canada should expect Tariffs starting April 1
Secretary of Commerce-designate Howard Lutnick told a Senate committee that the threat of imposing a 25% tariff was to get Canada and Mexico to “respect” the United States and stop the flow of fentanyl into the country.
President Donald Trump nominated Lutnick, who rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald after the financial services firm suffered massive losses in the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, to serve as Secretary of Commerce Nov. 19. Lutnick told Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing that the threatened tariffs were intended to “create action” on two major issues.
WATCH:
“The short-term issue is illegal migration and worse, even still, fentanyl coming into this country and killing over a hundred thousand Americans,” Lutnick said. “There’s no war we could have that would kill a hundred thousand Americans. The president is focused on ending fentanyl coming into the country. You know that the labs in Canada are run by Mexican cartels. So, this tariff model is simply to shut their borders with respect, respect America. We are your biggest trading partner, show us the respect, shut your border and end fentanyl coming into this country.”
“So it is not a tariff, per se,” Lutnick continued. “It is an action of domestic policy. Shut your border and stop allowing fentanyl into our country, killing our people. So this is a separate tariff to create action from Mexico and action from Canada, and as far as I know, they are acting swiftly and if they execute, there will be no tariff. If they don’t, then there will be.”
Drug overdoses killed 105,007 Americans in 2023, which is slightly fewer than the 107,941 who were killed in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) seized over 55 million fentanyl pills in 2023 alone, CBS News reported.
One kilogram of fentanyl can reportedly kill up to a half-million people, according to the DEA.
Almost 22,000 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the U.S. border in fiscal year 2024 with another 4,537 pounds being seized in fiscal year 2025 to date, according to statistics released by United States Customs and Border Protection. Upon taking office on Jan. 20, Trump issued several executive orders, including designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, declaring a national emergency on the southern border and setting policy on securing the border.
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