Wyoming could see thousands of new construction jobs, long-term pipeline work, and millions in new tax revenue from a new cross-border oil pipeline approved Friday by President Donald Trump, even as environmental critics warn of spill risks and call it “Keystone Light.”
Trump has approved a cross-border permit for Bridger Pipeline’s 650-mile project, which will carry up to 550,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude to the Gulf Coast by way of Guernsey, Wyoming, with the potential to more than double that volume over time.
The Trump administration has pitched the Bridger Pipeline as a way to boost American energy security and jobs, while University of Wyoming economist Rob Godby says the project is likely to bring a significant wave of high-paying construction work, long-term pipeline jobs, and higher tax revenues for Wyoming’s oil and gas industry.
Environmental groups, meanwhile, say the Bridger Pipeline is just a scaled-down version of Keystone XL, a controversial, massive Canada-U.S. pipeline that was cancelled on the first day of former President Joe Biden’s Biden administration in 2021.
President Trump tried to revive the pipeline during his first term, but it became mired in lawsuits and was ultimately scrapped for good, its parent company, TC Energy said at the time.
The new 650-mile pipeline will start with a volume of up to 550,000 barrels per day, but can eventually scale to 1.3 million.
It will tie into Canadian infrastructure owned by South Bow Corp., at the Montana border in Phillips County. South Bow is a spinoff from TC Energy, once more widely known as TransCanada — the company behind the cancelled Keystone XL.
The Proposed Keystone XL
The route of this new pipeline is far different from Keystone. It avoids critics in Nebraska, whose grassroots agricultural opponents and indigenous coalition proved to be a significant obstacle. It also bypasses American Indian reservations, which also protested Keystone XL.
The route will follow existing pipeline corridors and rights of way, but will still pass under major rivers, including Yellowstone and the Missouri rivers. Environmental activists have vowed to fight the project, which must still receive numerous permits from state and federal agencies.
Economic Impact Will Be Significant
Public filings do not yet contain specific figures for the jobs and tax revenues Bridger Pipeline will create. But it will be significant, University of Wyoming’s Robert Godby told Cowboy State Daily. The economist is part of a team that helps put together economic projections for Wyoming.
“Pipelines aren’t minor,” he said. “They affect the local economies for a period of time.”
The Rocky Mountain Express Pipeline, built in the early 2000s, is an example of the dynamic, even if the scale of that project was much larger, at 4.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.
“That was a really huge gas pipeline to move Wyoming natural gas to the Chicago hub and beyond,” Godby said. ‘It had huge impacts on our construction industry, because you had like, literally, man camps that were moving along with the pipeline, like hundreds of welders working on different segments.”
To the extent construction projects keep a labor pool in Wyoming, that may help the wider oil and gas industry as a whole, by creating demand for that workforce.
There will also be significant tax revenues, though Godby has not seen any projections for that yet. And there could be knock-on effects for the wider oil and gas industry, to the extent having the pipeline opens up new capacity in the overall system.
“The fact it goes through Wyoming, all of those indirect effects all bolster the existing industry that’s here,” he said.
“Even if we’re not getting direct benefits from this — there will be a few direct benefits for a few people associated with it — but beyond that, it’s additional activity in the oil sector. It’s additional investment in the oil sector,” Godby said. "All of those things have less direct effects. They also change the outlook, the investment climate, much more broadly.”
Further Positions Wyoming Oil And Gas
The pipeline’s endpoint in Guernsey is what caught Wyoming Petroleum Association’s Ryan McConnaughey’s eye.
“Investments like Bridger Pipeline’s expansion, along with continued growth in areas like the Powder River Basin, demonstrate Wyoming will continue to play a critical role in the nation’s energy markets,” he said. “The oil and natural gas industry is Wyoming’s primary economic engine and largest source of tax revenue.”
The pipeline is going to cross through Crook, Weston, Niobrara, Goshen, and Platte counties, McConnaughey added.
“(It) will provide high-paying construction jobs, long-term operational employment, and increased tax revenues that will fund K-12 education, infrastructure improvements, and essential public safety services across eastern Wyoming,” he said.
All Kinds Of Petroleum Products Allowed
The pipeline will tie into key Bakken receipt points, including Four Mile station, which is north of Sidney, Montana, and the Baker/Sandstone Station west of Baker, Montana.
That positioning butts the pipeline right up against Bridger’s existing North Dakota gathering network.
While the primary purpose of the pipeline is to carry Canadian crude oil, which is a heavier type that contains a lot of sulfur, its proximity to light-weight sweet crude from Bakken shippers is suggestive that the pipeline might not only carry heavy oil.
Officials with Bridger Pipeline did not respond to Cowboy State Daily’s inquiries about the pipeline and the types of oil it might carry. But Bridger Pipeline’s spokesman Bill Salvin has told other media that the pipeline could carry various grades of crude oil.
Trump’s permit also allows other petroleum products “of every description, refined or unrefined,” including gasoline, kerosene, diesel, liquified petroleum gas, natural gas liquids and jet fuel.
That language and the pipeline’s positioning near sweet crude networks in the Bakken is suggestive for similar producers in the Powder River, who are producing low sulfur Powder River Sweet or Rocky Mountain Sweet.
McConnaughey said the project does not currently have any interconnections on the books for Wyoming but added the company has continued expanding well connections in the Powder River.
“These types of connections demonstrate the willingness of companies to invest in Wyoming, and may spur additional development,” he said.
Wildcard For Powder River Oil And Gas
The Powder River has long faced constraints when it comes to getting its crude to market, which results in significant discounts per barrel of oil.
To the extent Bridger Pipeline improves overall access or eventually provides interconnections, that could help mitigate that.
One key to retaining all those benefits, Godby suggested, will be avoiding a repeat of all the angst and opposition that Keystone XL drew.
“Without getting into anything speculative, this is obviously going around what was a failed project,” Godby said. “Keystone XL was canceled by (former President Joe) Biden, but there were lots of people who would have liked to have seen that resolved.”
But many environmental groups that opposed Keystone are already lining up to weigh in against the Bridger Pipeline.
“The biggest concern we see right now is the concern inherent in all pipeline projects, which is the risk of spills,” the group Earthjustice said in a statement. “Pipelines rupture and leak, it’s just a fact of pipelines."
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
