Expanded pipeline opens new markets

Reliance on U.S. has been reduced

- ROBERT TUTTLE

Canada's newly expanded oil pipeline to the Pacific is opening new markets for the country's crude in Asia, while reducing flows off the U.S. Gulf Coast, at least partly fulfilling the project's promise of diversifying the industry's customer base.

Canadian oil producers have shipped about 28 million more barrels of crude off the country's West Coast since the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline began full operations in June than it did in the four months before that, according to data from Vortexa.

Meanwhile, shipments off the U.S. Gulf declined by 1.68 million barrels in that time.