Locator: 50307B.
WTI: $90.33. Up $2.16 since last report; up 2.45%.
New wells reporting:
- Wednesday, March 25, 2026: 37 for the month, 141 for the quarter, 141 for the year,
- 42247, conf, CLR, Richmond 6-26H,
- 42240, conf, CLR, Charleston 7-15H,
- 42188, conf, BR, Abercrombie 7-8-12UTFH,
- 41460, conf, Hunt Oil, State A 156-90-9-16H-5,
- Tuesday, March 24, 2026: 33 for the month, 137 for the quarter, 137 for the year,
- 41193, conf, Devon Energy, Eide 6-7 8H,
RBN Energy: more Canadian heavy crude is heading south -- likely via the Rockies. Link here. Archived.
It’s coming. More Canadian heavy crude barrels are on their way to the U.S. Gulf Coast. It looks like some, if not most, of that oil could be taking a somewhat circuitous route — through PADD 4, the U.S. Rocky Mountain states. To understand why, you’ve got to grasp both Canadian and Rockies production trends, the complex web of crude oil pipes from Alberta down to the U.S. Gulf Coast, the delicate regional balances that must be navigated along the way, the implications for the major Rockies crude hub at Guernsey, WY, and, of course, the economics of making the trip.
That’s what we do in Roundabout – Canada-To-Rockies Crude Flows Reshaping the PADD 4 Guernsey Market, our new multiclient study developed in partnership with Plainview Energy Analytics. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the contents of that comprehensive analysis and why the topics covered are so important to the crude market in North America. Be warned, this is an unabashed commercial plug for our new study. We hope you find it intriguing.
Canadian crude oil production has been, is now, and will keep on growing, with almost all of the increase coming in the heavy, viscous, high-sulfur variety — what’s euphemistically called oil sands. But where’s it going to go? Not to the Midwest. Refineries there are full up with the stuff. Not to exports out of British Columbia. The new pipe that takes crude that way was delayed by a decade, required a Canadian government takeover to reach completion, and ultimately cost nearly six times its original budget. Ouch.
No, the barrels will be coming to the U.S. Gulf Coast, home to the largest concentration of heavy oil refineries in the world.
But exactly how it is going to get there is a wide-open question. There are a number of midstream companies vying for the opportunity to move those barrels south. Several pipeline proposals are in the works that would move incremental Canadian crude through different corridors and hubs before ultimately linking into the systems that carry crude to the Gulf Coast. No single project lays out the entire route from origin to destination, but the various proposals point toward a chain of roundabout connections that could move those barrels step by step toward the Gulf, with many of those barrels flowing through the Rocky Mountains.
Before getting to some of our key findings, it will help to describe just how comprehensive this study truly is. This work is essentially the “bible” of Canadian crude flows to the U.S., especially through the Rockies: 20+ maps with receipt points, delivery points and interconnects; 25+ graphics of flow corridors, production trends, and price relationships; detailed regional balance calculations; 80+ pages in all. It is everything you need to know about how crude oil logistics and markets work from Alberta down to Cushing, and beyond. Here’s what can be concluded from all that analysis.
Canada-To-Rockies Crude Flows Reshaping the PADD 4 Guernsey Market
Western Canada will continue to deliver crude oil production increases for the foreseeable future, with Alberta's oil sands driving most of that expansion through incremental projects rather than large greenfield developments. That oil must go somewhere, and accommodating the bitumen-derived, heavy, viscous crude will require additional pipeline capacity. That crude will flow on three major corridors, shown in Figure 1 below:
- PADD 2 (Midwest corridor; dark green and orange diamonds): The dominant pathway, anchored by Enbridge Mainline and Keystone, delivering large volumes from Edmonton/Hardisty into the U.S. Midwest, with onward connectivity to hubs such as Flanagan, IL; Patoka, IL; and Cushing.
- PADD 4 (Rockies corridor; pink, light green and red diamonds): A set of cross-border systems delivering crude into the U.S. Rockies via Enbridge Express, Bow River/Milk River/Front Range, and the Rangeland/Glacier/Western Corridor systems, converging on key Rockies markets and the hub at Guernsey.
- PADD 5 (West Coast corridor; blue diamond): The westbound export route via Trans Mountain/TMX to British Columbia and export markets, with related access into the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
