When Joe Biden scrapped a permit for the huge Keystone XL pipeline just hours after entering the White House last year, a death knell seemed to be ringing for Canada’s oil sands, by far the largest supplier of foreign oil to the US.
The project, which would have carried Alberta’s heavy, bituminous crude oil to Gulf Coast refineries in Texas, had been opposed for years by environmentalists, owing to the oil sands’ associated ecological impact and high emissions (greater than those of many European countries).
Even before the cancellation, big European oil companies, insurers and some Wall Street investors had started fleeing a sector that was becoming a villain of the environmental, social and governance investing movement. Then, the Covid-19 pandemic triggered an oil crash that deepened the damage, forcing operators to sack thousands of workers, throttle production and slash capital spending.