South Bow Corp. says it is working on permitting, land acquisitions, financing and other measures before giving the final go-ahead to its Prairie Connector pipeline project.
The crude oil pipeline operator said in its third-quarter earnings call Thursday that it and its U.S. partner Bridger Pipeline LLC expect to make a final investment decision midway through next year. Together, their proposed pipelines would ship oilsands crude to the Canada-U.S. border and onto U.S. destinations, serving a similar purpose to the previously failed Keystone XL expansion. Prairie Connector would link up with a pipeline Bridger is planning from the border to Wyoming.
“Alongside our partner, our teams are advancing a number of activities, including permitting and land acquisitions, stakeholder engagement, execution planning, cost refinement and financing arrangements,” said South Bow CEO Bevin Wirzba.
“In parallel, we are working toward the regulatory certainty and permit durability needed to support an investment decision.”
Prairie Connector would use dormant pipe previously intended for the defunct Keystone XL expansion project, which was scuttled amid intense environmental and political opposition several years ago. Keystone XL was pursued by TC Energy Corp., which spun off its oil pipeline business to form South Bow in 2024.
“Prairie Connector/Liberty Bridge could materially expand the growth outlook, but permit durability remains unresolved and larger capital commitments have yet to be made,” TD analyst Aaron MacNeil said in a note to investors Thursday. Liberty Bridge refers to another pipeline proposal Bridger is leading alongside South Bow that would run from Wyoming to Oklahoma.
South Bow says it expects its share of the pre-development costs for that project to be US$65 million this year, with another US$65 million next year. The Calgary-based company says it will consider speeding up spending as “greater regulatory certainty and permit durability are achieved.”
Wirzba said the result of the U.S. midterm elections this week that saw Democrats take control of Congress doesn’t change the fundamentals that underpin its business.
“We build our business agnostic to the administrations that are in place in states and provinces and federally, and the results of the midterms will obviously have some effects broadly but they don’t really affect our strategy, and they don’t affect the plans that we have going forward,” he said.
Overall, Wirzba said the outlook for the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin is strong.
“Production is growing and importantly our conversations with customers are becoming increasingly focused on how we can support those growth and expansion plans,” he said.
Late Wednesday, South Bow reported third-quarter net income of US$99 million, up from US$93 million a year earlier.
The profit amounted to 47 cents US per share versus 45 cents US per share during the same 2025 quarter.
Revenue edged up to US$503 million from US$461 million year-over-year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2026.
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