Canada Pipeline Throughput Capacity Report Data: Dataset Structure and Field Coverage

The Canada Energy Regulator (CER) publishes filed throughput and capacity figures as one structured dataset on the Government of Canada's Open Government portal. It ships as roughly 48 CSV files - one file per pipeline system plus three data dictionaries - each offered in English and French versions.

Coverage runs from 1 January 2006 to present, with record metadata verified through 31 March 2026, and refreshes quarterly or sooner when needed. The grain differs by commodity: oil and liquids pipelines report monthly volumes per key point, while natural gas pipelines report daily. The largest single file is the NGTL System's daily table at about 11.5 MB of rows since 2006.

Nineteen-plus systems are named in the record: Keystone, Trans Mountain (current plus an archived set reflecting the May 2024 revision of Trans Mountain product categorizations), Trans-Northern, Cochin, NGTL System, TransCanada Mainline, Foothills, Alliance, Westcoast, Trans Quebec & Maritimes, Maritimes & Northeast, Enbridge Canadian Mainline, Enbridge Norman Wells, Southern Lights, Brunswick, Westspur, Enbridge Line 9, Montreal and Suffield.

Since 2016, major CER-regulated pipeline companies have been required under Guide BB of the CER Filing Manual to report this data quarterly - so every number traces back to a regulatory filing rather than an estimate.

Oil pipeline files carry everything needed for a throughput-versus-capacity ratio without any joins:

1. Throughput (1000 m3/d) - volume flowing past the key point, in thousand cubic metres per day.
2. Nameplate Capacity (1000 m3/d) - the physical limit the line can safely carry.
3. Available Capacity (1000 m3/d) - actual capacity after crude type, unplanned outages, maintenance, downstream constraints or pressure restrictions.
4. Reason For Variance - the operator's own explanation when available capacity misses nameplate.

Throughput also splits into Committed Volumes and Uncommitted Volumes (1000 m3/d), though for Keystone that split exists only from January 2023 onward. Each row adds Date, Company, Pipeline, Key Point, latitude/longitude, Direction Of Flow, Trade Type (import, export, or intra-Canada) and Product (for example domestic heavy versus domestic light).

Natural gas files swap in an energy dimension: throughput in GJ/d alongside volumetric capacity. One caveat the CER dictionary itself flags: the natural gas capacity column header says 1000 m3/d while its unit note references gigajoules per day, so verify units before publishing derived series.

A worked example from the sample rows: NGTL's East Gate key point on 1 January 2006 shows throughput of 228,618.3 against capacity of 220,461.0 (1000 m3/d) - over-nameplate operation visible on day one of the series.

CER coverage stops at the border, so cross-border and demand-side context comes from three cataloged companions:

• EIA Petroleum & Other Liquids Data Portal (quality 10). The US side of crude flows: PADD-level imports and exports by country of origin and destination, weekly status series and a PET bulk file of roughly 53,300 series reaching daily spot prices back to 1986, all US commercial delivery terms. Pairing CER export-crossing volumes at key points with EIA import statistics by origin country closes the loop on north-south flows.
• Global Energy Monitor - Global Oil Infrastructure Tracker (GOIT) (quality 8). Asset-level routes and ownership chains for 1,634 oil pipeline projects totalling about 487,000 km, plus 292 NGL projects, in XLSX, GeoJSON and GeoPackage under commercial delivery terms 4.0. Use it to map which CER-reported key points sit on which physical route and who owns them - geometry the CER files deliberately omit beyond point coordinates.
• GeoDataViewer - Global Oil & Gas Pipelines Dataset (quality 4). A directory page pointing at EIA and GEM extracts in GeoJSON and Shapefile rather than a hosted file; convenient for discovery, but go upstream to the sources it lists for anything citable.

For Canadian macro context outside this slice, Statistics Canada energy statistics serve the integrated oil-gas industry; for forward views, the STEO's US refinery balances run through the end of 2027.

Utilization monitoring on export lines. Divide monthly throughput by available capacity at each key point to track how tight Keystone, Trans Mountain and Enbridge Mainline run through quarter. The Reason For Variance column tells you whether a gap reflects maintenance or a binding constraint.

Contract-mix analysis. The committed versus uncommitted split (Keystone from January 2023) shows how much volume moves on contracted service versus spot - a signal shippers watch before bidding on apportioned capacity.

Cross-border flow reconciliation. Match export trade-type rows at border key points against EIA import statistics by country of origin to check both sides of the same physical barrel.

GIS enrichment. Key-point latitude/longitude supports joining throughput to GOIT route geometry, turning tabular filings into mapped utilization surfaces.

A skeptical read suits the data: it is operator-filed, quarterly, and measured where the operator chooses to measure. Treat nameplate as theoretical and available capacity as the operative ceiling, and cite the variance reasons rather than inferring causes the filing does not state.