Greg Ebel — Canada Wants Pipelines: Enbridge CEO Says Private Capital Still Isn't Sold

2:44 "Competitiveness has been a disaster" — the lost decade

• Revisits his fall-2025 line that Canadian competitiveness has been "a disaster" for 10 years — plain-spoken talk you rarely hear from a Canadian CEO. He frames the Trudeau years as a "lost decade" the current PM would himself acknowledge.
• Canada's GDP per capita would rank ~51st "if we were a state" — "not what Canadians deserve," and a decade of lost ground to catch up.

3:14 Two pipeline announcements — "game on"

• Throw Iran, Venezuela and Canada–US "unpleasantness" onto the lost decade and "it's game on" — you're either running or getting run over. He sees a real moderation in attitudes toward conventional energy ("what the fundamentals say anyways").
• Governments are now trying to build structures that make private-capital formation more attractive "relative to our competitors" — "it's Canada versus the rest of the world," and the greatest capital market is the US.

5:30 The world changed in a week — oil +7%, $15 LNG vs $3 gas

• "So much for the normalization trade" — oil up ~7% on the day; European LNG ~$15/M vs ~$3 gas in North America. Add Venezuela and the aversion to relying on a single export/import market, and it's a "heaven-sent situation for Canadians if we take advantage of it."
• The conversation has shifted from "terminal values of investments" to a rising tide raising all boats.

6:33 Why Enbridge isn't a West Coast proponent

• "It's early days." The government owns a pipeline (TMX) and is "front-running" the risk because the risk-reward "is not very attractive quite yet." Ebel expects Ottawa to eventually recycle that capital into private hands (as with airports).
• Meanwhile Enbridge has "$40 billion worth of projects" across its businesses (two-thirds gas), plus new oil infrastructure heading south — "plenty to do in the near term." Enbridge focuses "not on the color of the government but the fundamentals," and the fundamentals favour other opportunities right now.

8:24 "The multiple Ps" — production before pipes

• His central correction: "there are multiple Ps here and the pipeline's the last one. The first one is production — without production there's no need for a pipeline." The whole debate is "asked backwards."
• Governments are in close consultation with his customers; once they "get the green light to produce millions of barrels more," everything else follows (possibly even shipping east, which would need doubled refining capacity in Quebec/Ontario).

9:29 Incentivize, don't penalize — and the ~$100B build

• Echoes Cenovus CEO John McKenzie: producers need to be incentivized, not penalized, for increased production. "The devil's in the detail" — drawing a line on a map is one thing; investing is another.
• Cites Imperial Oil's John Whelan: this is a "$100 billion investment from upstream to midstream to ports" (a trillion-dollar equivalent in the US). Producers can't commit until there's not just clarity but "certainty about the regulatory structure."

10:47 "Do we even need it?" — current capacity vs a 10-year thesis

• Pushes back on the "we have expansions, we don't need a pipeline" op-eds: pipes are full — 12 straight months of apportionment (rationing space). But "this isn't about current. This is about 10 years out," and about diversifying markets.
• The IEA "has talked about declining oil demand forever and been wrong forever"; seven billion people, six billion without affordable/conventional energy — the demand case is long-term, not near-term.

13:15 The grand bargain & the tanker ban

• Reads the government's move as: if private proponents won't show up now and the "grand bargain" (e.g. removing the North Coast tanker ban) isn't there, start the process anyway — FID is a long way off (their number is ~2028–29).
• Ebel still believes the tanker ban is "not that helpful to Canadian interest" — "if you like one path, why wouldn't you like two?" (95% of Canadian oil goes south to the largest, most profitable market). Enbridge's edge: starting — not finishing — with indigenous ownership in its pipelines.

15:40 Fortress North America — and could private do it cheaper?

• Canada has "much to offer the world" — Fortress North America energy security matters to the US and to Europe (even Germany, which "didn't want it but they do"). Why wouldn't Canadians provide safe, reliable energy?
• On the ~$35–40B West Coast price tag: of course private could do it cheaper "if the conditions are there" — but the PM is chasing bigger goals (advancing the country) than the straight economics.

18:02 The east pipeline — lower odds; refining is the real question

• "We have to figure out what problem we're trying to solve." Eastern Canada already gets Canadian barrels — Sarnia ~80%, Montreal >50% — via existing pipe under a pipeline-treaty act, and neither government has ever threatened energy tariffs ("not in anybody's interest").
• A new-build east pipe will struggle to beat existing pipe on cost "unless the governments are looking at doubling refining capacity in Eastern Canada" (no big new refinery built on the continent in ~50 years).

20:12 National unity — Quebec + Alberta

• Two "votes" (Quebec and Alberta) but "it can't be anything but positive" from a trend perspective — proof Canada can "do big things" between provinces that historically disagreed. "Canadians are not myopic and self-absorbed" — they see the global opportunity.

21:09 "Enbridge is a company, not a country"

• Enbridge's history (Spectra Energy acquisition, post-Northern-Gateway pivot south) means most growth capital has gone to the US — but it still spends billions in Canada ($1.5–2B/yr in Ontario, $6–8B of BC gas pipelines).
• Fiduciary duty comes first: "Enbridge is not a country, it's a company" (half the board American, half Canadian; Ebel a dual citizen). Capital goes to "the most competitive place to do business" — today the US, on tax, regulatory speed and market size (10× bigger). The PM is trying to change that.

23:08 Could the balance tilt to Canada? "We have to run faster"

• "Definitely could tilt" toward Canada over five years — but Canada "had at least eight LNG proposals and completed only one," while the US went from banned to the world's largest exporter in a decade. "To attract investment domestically, we have to run faster — and we're not running fast enough" (the PM agrees).

26:54 Both sides of the border — "first choice" adviser

• Enbridge's motto: be the "first choice" for investors, employees, customers, communities — and for regulators/policymakers, who "pick up the phone and talk to us first" for largely unbiased advice. It's in the White House, the DOE, Ottawa, every province and state.
• Because infrastructure is "linear," you can't route around a hostile jurisdiction — you have to give wise counsel everywhere and trust that "fundamentals will win."

28:52 Fundamentals win — the gas-utility bet paid off

• The proof point: Enbridge bought gas utilities ~3 years ago "when people were saying I don't know about gas" — growth has come in 25–30% higher than expected. "Security, affordability and sustainability" all require conventional fuels.
• On Canada–US friction he defers to the trade professionals — "the two economies are connected at the hip," and history (Trudeau–Reagan, the 1988 Mulroney free-trade election) shows the economies move forward once the rhetoric fades.

31:57 Iran/Venezuela — infrastructure as a geopolitical tool

• The oil re-rating (Iran ceasefire breaking, attacks resuming) surprises nobody in energy — this "takes years and years to come back." Exporting is now seen as "a geopolitical tool as powerful, if not more, than military activity."
• That's true whether projecting power off the Gulf Coast or eventually off Canada's west coast — the value of infrastructure and exporting "has been an easier discussion right across North America."

34:47 $3 gas vs $20 JKM — and AI/data-center power

• "$3 gas versus $20 JKM" is a "massive competitive and political advantage." Cheap gas exists only where there's infrastructure — the US northeast hit $25/M this winter (most expensive in the world) despite the Marcellus next door, purely for lack of pipe. Governments now ask Enbridge to build for affordability.
• On top of geopolitics, policymakers are asking about "the data center AI power-gen thing" — Enbridge can help on gas distribution, gas pipelines, oil, exports, LNG and (increasingly valuable) storage.

36:09 What it means for Enbridge — competition & the mainline

• New pipe capacity is "competition," but "there's always been lots of competition." Enbridge goes by 75% of the North American refining complex and is the largest oil exporter out of the US. Despite TMX and South Bow's Keystone, the mainline grew from 1M (2000) to 3.2M bbl/d and is still expanding (projects in '27–'28).
• "I like the competition — it makes us sharpen our pencils." And the east/west projects are "a decade away" — plenty of near-term work, including the huge Alberta regional system (Fort McMurray–Edmonton), diluent (Norlite, Southern Lights) and condensate.

38:44 Backlog $40B → $60B; capital-allocation discipline

• Backlog has gone from $26B to $40B; Ebel is "thinking about how to get it to $60B" ("a high-class problem"). He did a $14B US utility acquisition in '23–24 and runs an "all of the above" approach — buy and sell assets, monetize, and solve "social license" by selling 10–15% of the regional oil system to Alberta First Nations and bringing 40 nations into the BC gas pipelines (which also raises capital).
• Discipline test: any deal must be accretive to EPS, at least neutral to the balance sheet, and beat "four other business units inside Enbridge" competing for the capital. He wouldn't be shocked to see US GDP grow 4–5% on the demand "flywheel."

41:34 The "halo trade" — why Enbridge's multiple is too low

• Infrastructure has been "lumped in with the AI bucket" (the "halo trade" — hard assets, low obsolescence) and benefited — but he thinks investors haven't applied that to Enbridge. Is the multiple too low? "Absolutely."
• Recency bias: a weak 2016–2020s infrastructure-build market has anchored investors, but Venezuela/Iran/AI now make it "look like the middle of the last decade" (2010–16), when multiples were much higher. The key shift: investors "no longer ask about terminal value; they ask how long can this growth go on" — and every year it persists justifies a higher multiple. Growth ~5% off a big base through 2030, debt at 4.5–5× EBITDA.

44:42 The pitch — 10–12% TSR, 30-yr dividend, 21-yr record

• The value proposition, "kept consistent for a long time": aim for 10–12% total shareholder return — a dividend that's grown every year for 30 years plus earnings growth — and Enbridge has hit its financial targets 21 years running ("double your money in less than seven years").
• How: best-quality customers, a built system, high-quality counterparties, "virtually no commodity risk," ~5% growth, 4.5–5× debt/EBITDA. Sustainable because energy demand keeps rising, Fortress North America is a growing reality, and both a Republican US and a Liberal Canada are making supportive policy/permitting changes.

46:35 A genuine turning point? "A big tanker, slow turn"

• "We're already making the turn — it's a big tanker, no pun intended, a slow turn." Supportive governments, supportive capital markets, "money is not an issue," and "we're starting to get bankable projects."
• The lynchpin remains the customer: if producers get the deal they need from federal + provincial governments, "we're on our way to 2 million more barrels a day out of Western Canada" plus Permian growth — all pointing to Fortress North America. He wouldn't do a greenfield Canadian pipeline today; he can serve customers faster by expanding existing assets.