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British Columbia

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AccountabilityJune 11, 20267 min read
Canada Pumps 6.1 Million Barrels a Day and Can Refine 1.9 Million. B.C. Sends Crude to Washington State — and Buys It Back as Gasoline. During a Trade War.
Canada produced about 6.1 million barrels of oil per day in 2025. Its 14 refineries can process about 1.9 million barrels per day and ran at roughly 90% of that capacity. The arithmetic gap defines the system: roughly 4 million barrels a day leave the country as crude, 98% of it to the United States (2024), where Gulf Coast and Midwest refineries — built specifically to process heavy oil — capture the refining margin. During the 2025-26 trade war, the United States imposed a 10% tariff on Canadian crude, taxing the very flow Canada depends on. Meanwhile Canada re-imports refined products, and Ontario and Quebec refineries now source their imported crude almost entirely (99%+) from the United States. The most vivid loop is British Columbia's: Alberta crude moves via Trans Mountain to Washington State refineries (BP Cherry Point runs substantially on Alaskan and Canadian crude), and the largest share of Washington's exported refined product ships right back to B.C. — a figure documented at roughly 145,000 barrels per day of crude south and gasoline/jet fuel north in the mid-2010s. No major Canadian refinery has been built since 1984; the one attempt, Alberta's Sturgeon Refinery (2017-2020), ballooned from $5.7 billion to roughly $10 billion for just ~80,000 barrels per day, with Alberta taxpayers absorbing a 50% stake plus $25 billion in 30-year processing commitments. Economists like Trevor Tombe argue the market is signalling Canada has no comparative advantage in marginal refining; sovereignty advocates answer that the trade war has repriced the risk of refining dependence on a single foreign customer. The carbon argument the operator class often makes — that the round trip burns extra emissions — is real but modest: transport is a small share of oil's lifecycle emissions compared to extraction and combustion. The harder documented cost is economic: the value-added margin, and the Western Canadian Select discount, surrendered every day at the border. Both major federal leaders now propose versions of an answer — Carney's "energy superpower" agenda and Alberta pipeline memorandum aimed at Asian markets, Poilievre's Canada First National Energy Corridor — and both, notably, are about moving more crude, not refining it.

Canada Pumps 6.1 Million Barrels a Day and Can Refine 1.9 Million. B.C. Sends Crude to Washington State — and Buys It Back as Gasoline. During a Trade War.

Canada produced about 6.1 million barrels of oil per day in 2025. Its 14 refineries can process about 1.9 million barrels per day and ran at roughly 90% of that capacity. The arithmetic gap defines the system: roughly 4 million barrels a day leave the country as crude, 98% of it to the United States (2024), where Gulf Coast and Midwest refineries — built specifically to process heavy oil — capture the refining margin. During the 2025-26 trade war, the United States imposed a 10% tariff on Canadian crude, taxing the very flow Canada depends on. Meanwhile Canada re-imports refined products, and Ontario and Quebec refineries now source their imported crude almost entirely (99%+) from the United States. The most vivid loop is British Columbia's: Alberta crude moves via Trans Mountain to Washington State refineries (BP Cherry Point runs substantially on Alaskan and Canadian crude), and the largest share of Washington's exported refined product ships right back to B.C. — a figure documented at roughly 145,000 barrels per day of crude south and gasoline/jet fuel north in the mid-2010s. No major Canadian refinery has been built since 1984; the one attempt, Alberta's Sturgeon Refinery (2017-2020), ballooned from $5.7 billion to roughly $10 billion for just ~80,000 barrels per day, with Alberta taxpayers absorbing a 50% stake plus $25 billion in 30-year processing commitments. Economists like Trevor Tombe argue the market is signalling Canada has no comparative advantage in marginal refining; sovereignty advocates answer that the trade war has repriced the risk of refining dependence on a single foreign customer. The carbon argument the operator class often makes — that the round trip burns extra emissions — is real but modest: transport is a small share of oil's lifecycle emissions compared to extraction and combustion. The harder documented cost is economic: the value-added margin, and the Western Canadian Select discount, surrendered every day at the border. Both major federal leaders now propose versions of an answer — Carney's "energy superpower" agenda and Alberta pipeline memorandum aimed at Asian markets, Poilievre's Canada First National Energy Corridor — and both, notably, are about moving more crude, not refining it.