Alberta Premier Danielle Smith supports a potential Keystone XL revival with the aim of bolstering oil production and building more pipelines.

“Madame Premier, you want to ‘Drill, Baby Drill’ … and send your oil to America, is that right?” asked Fox News in an interview with Smith. “It is,” she replied. “I’ve been wanting to double production in Alberta since I got elected.”

First developed by TC Energy, the 1,200-mile pipeline would have carried some 800,000 barrels per day if built to completion, carrying Canadian crude to U.S. refineries.

Despite successful bids to cancel the pipeline by environmental lobbyists, proponents of the project say demand for Canadian crude remains high. 

“America is our best friend and trading partner,” Smith said. We benefit from more oil production. America benefits from more oil production.”

A Politico report said bringing back the pipeline is among the “list of things” Trump’s transition team wants to do on the first day back in office.

Premier Smith expressed optimism in the prospects of a potential Keystone XL revival Wednesday. “Hopefully we can find a mutually satisfactory way forward so we can increase our production and build more pipelines,” she told Fox Business.

“Do you think that President-elect Trump can exert enough pressure on Prime Minister Trudeau to make that happen?” asked the host. “There is a willing partner in Canada — not only Alberta but also our federal government,” replied Smith.

“It was actually the U.S. President Joe Biden who cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline when he came into office,” she clarified, noting its revival starts in U.S. courts.

The cancellation cost the employment of tens of thousands of American and Canadian workers, prompting 21 states to sue the Biden administration over his executive order, in addition to strong pushback from Republicans, Democrats, and Canadian lawmakers.

Trudeau, at the time of the pipeline’s cancellation, expressed “disappointment” in the decision, but ultimately catered to Biden’s fight against ‘climate change.'

“The U.S. decision to revoke the permit was unfair and inequitable,” reads a 2021 arbitration filing by TC Energy, the pipeline developer. It said the U.S. had put Keystone XL on a 13-year “regulatory rollercoaster.”

TC Energy, an Alberta-based company, announced it had suspended construction on the pipeline ahead of Biden’s inauguration more than four years ago. They anticipated the revocation of the 2017 agreement under then-President Trump.

The company unsuccessfully sought compensation for the losses incurred from its cancellation. 

If completed, Keystone XL would run crude oil from Alberta to oil refineries in Illinois and Texas, where existing infrastructure would transport it to the Gulf Coast for international shipping. 

As reported by Oil Price, oil trains have been used to transport barrels across the Canada-U.S. border.

“We know that our particular brand of oil, which is heavy oil, is what your refineries have been retooled to receive,” Smith said Wednesday. 

“There’s not many places in the world you can get it from,” she adds, noting other energy producers like Iran and Venezuela house dictatorships. “We think we’re a better trading partner and friend than those countries.”

As of 2020, Canada has lost $150 billion in energy investment opportunities since Justin Trudeau became prime minister.