Canada Approves Pacific Link Pipeline; South Korea Must Wait Until 2032 for More Oil

Canada cleared a major regulatory step for the proposed Pacific Link crude pipeline, but South Korea won’t get additional capacity until 2032 at the earliest. On October 1, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced the 1-million-barrel-per-day project from Alberta to British Columbia’s Pacific coast was designated a Project of National Interest under Canada’s Building Canada Act. The designation doesn’t start construction; it streamlines federal review aimed at a September 2027 start, with first oil no sooner than 2032, according to TD Economics. The timeline matters because Trans Mountain—the only system moving Canadian crude to Pacific tidewater—already hit full capacity in June 2026 after its May 2024 expansion. South Korea’s imports are shaped by prior Hormuz disruption.