Per the recent Wikistrat simulation (North America's Export Energy Boom), Canada grows weary of the complications of exporting energy to the US market (see Keystone XL) and starts to spot easier venues going West to Asia:
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP KMP +0.40% said Thursday it will begin a $5 billion expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline, nearly tripling the capacity of crude oil it can ship to Canada's west coast—the latest project aimed at moving the country's rising oil production to markets outside the U.S.
Currently, almost all Canadian crude exports travel to the U.S. While Canadian oil output has been climbing fast, pipeline capacity to move it from the country's biggest oil patch in landlocked Alberta to U.S. refining markets is stretched.
The resulting glut, and rising oil production in the U.S. itself, has depressed prices for Canadian crude.
Our dysfunctional politics not only scares off the Canadians, it creates the same weird glut dynamic amidst our fabulous boom in natural gas production. While Asian markets scream for LNG and can't get nearly enough, we refuse to export. An objective look at that would suggest some dumbass mercantilist logic having gripped some immature rising economy, but - of course - those who seek to deny LNG exports have all sorts of economic illogic at their disposal.
Meanwhile, we demonize China over similar bouts of stupidity, but at least there you can spot some legitimate developmental logic (all those rural interior poor still to be delivered).
We are living through some very bad political leadership and have for years now. I think history will judge the Boomer generation as among the worst political leadership cohorts ever suffered by America.