Over the next few weeks, oil companies from North America and Asia will take decisions that will help determine whether the Canadian province of Alberta joins the ranks of the world’s great oil-producing regions. At stake is a chance not only for Canada to gain a long-term economic boost but also for the US to bolster energy self-sufficiency and for China and Japan to increase their access to crude supplies.

Enbridge of Calgary, an operator of oil pipelines, late last month began what oilmen call the “open season” for its proposed Gateway project, a 1,160km pipeline from the provincial capital Edmonton to Canada’s Pacific coast. Terasen, a Vancouver-based pipeline operator that has just been acquired by Kinder Morgan of the US, plans a competing project, also across the Rocky Mountains. They are seeking commitments from refineries along the US west coast and across the Pacific to buy oil produced from Alberta’s massive deposits of bitumen-like oilsands.