Officials in Ottawa are lobbying against efforts by the State of Michigan's efforts to close a cross-border oil pipeline.
The United States imports more crude from Canada than any other nation, at about 3.7 million barrels per day, or about 80%of Canada's crude output.
Ottawa is raising the issue of Enbridge's (TSX:ENB) Line 5 pipeline with numerous U.S. counterparts - including President Joe Biden - to get them to pressure Michigan's Democratic Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, to keep the aging pipeline open and operational.
Last November, Michigan ordered Line 5 shutdown by May 13, citing the environmental risk of a possible leak in the four-mile (six-kilometre) stretch of the 540,000-bpd line passing under the Great Lakes.
The White House has shown no sign of responding to Canada’s lobbying efforts, so Ottawa is considering more drastic options, including a threat to invoke an obscure bilateral treaty to keep Line 5 operating or intervene in the legal dispute currently playing out in U.S. courts.
Line 5, which flows crude oil and refined products from Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario, via Michigan, has been in operation for nearly 70 years, but officials in Michigan are increasingly alarmed by its age.
Line 5 has never leaked but there have been at least eight other spills since 1980, according to U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration data.
The fight over Line 5 comes just three months after President Biden angered the Canadian oil and gas industry by cancelling a permit for the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline project on his first day in office.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government reluctantly accepted that decision, even though it killed thousands of construction jobs and further soured Ottawa's relationship with the Province of Alberta.
Ottawa has resolved to fight publicly to keep Line 5 open, which, unlike Keystone, is already operating and a vital link in Enbridge's export network that ships the vast majority of crude from Canada's western oil patch to the United States.
The United States imports more crude oil from Canada than any other nation, at about 3.7 million barrels per day, or about 80% of Canada's crude output.
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