“Keystone Light” Pipeline Proposal Adds New Leg From Wyoming Through Colorado and Kansas Into Cushing, OK – Avoiding Nebraska Entirely

(Former “Liberty Pipeline” route. Source: Liberty Pipeline)

“Keystone Light” Pipeline Proposal Adds New Leg From Wyoming Through Colorado and Kansas Into Cushing, OK – Avoiding Nebraska Entirely
by Mark Hefflinger and Paul Blackburn
July 9, 2026

South Bow and Bridger, the Canada- and Wyoming-based companies hoping to revive a version of the rejected Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline project, recently said that they will jointly develop a new pipeline route from Guernsey, Wyoming, to Cushing, Oklahoma, using a corridor acquired from Tallgrass Energy.

The “Liberty Pipeline” was initially a joint venture that Bridger and Phillips 66 (and later Tallgrass) explored in 2019 but ultimately did not move forward. The estimated $1.6 billion, 700-mile Liberty project intended to pump oil through a 24-inch pipeline from the Rockies and Bakken production areas to Cushing, Oklahoma, and also planned to utilize “existing pipeline and utility corridors,” the companies said at the time.

Earlier this year, South Bow and Bridger separately announced plans to develop the “Prairie Connector” and “Bridger Expansion” pipelines, which would utilize Canadian sections of the cancelled Keystone XL pipeline that were left in the ground to pump tar sands oil from Alberta through Montana to Guernsey, WY. (South Bow was spun off from TC Energy, formerly “TransCanada,” the developer of the original Keystone pipeline and cancelled Keystone XL project).

(“Prairie Connector” pipeline route. Source: Bridger Pipeline)

In the interim, analysts pointed out that such a project would need another pipeline to deliver that additional product from Guernsey to either markets in Cushing, OK or directly to the Gulf Coast for export.

The new pipeline proposal from South Bow and Bridger would link their “Prairie Connector” project to a viable endpoint in Cushing, OK via the Liberty pipeline route – which is presumed to avoid the state of Nebraska entirely – and instead head south through Colorado, and then snake southeast through Kansas and into Oklahoma.

The states of Oklahoma and Kansas have no state pipeline regulations at all, while Colorado’s Public Service Commission does not possess authority over pipeline siting. South Bow and Bridger still may need to obtain construction or land use permits from potentially impacted counties, and will also need wetland and water crossing permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

South Bow and Bridger said their “priority was to engage landowners and ​communities along the proposed route.” However, communities in Montana are already objecting to the project. A new lawsuit filed by Montana residents represented by Earthjustice is challenging a waiver issued by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to Bridger, and additionally claims that Bridger violated four other state laws, including a failure to submit a complete economic impact analysis.

A recent op-ed published in the Missoula Current by members of the local group Montana Health and Climate also called out the approval of a cross-border permit for the proposed project without any environmental review at all, as well as the pipeline safety records of Bridger and South Bow, and risks to waterways and groundwater drinking sources from spills.

Bold and the Pipeline Fighters Hub are reaching out to offer resources to impacted landowners and communities along the proposed “Prairie Connector” and new Guernsey-to-Cushing, former Liberty Pipeline routes in the U.S. Bold helped organize a coalition of landowners who stood firm and fought over a decade against eminent domain seizure of their land for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline – and their land was finally returned to them after the risky KXL project was cancelled.

Meanwhile on the Canadian side, South Bow said it has secured enough interest from prospective oil shippers to continue development, but has also said it will not make any final investment decision until mid-2027, putting into doubt other statements that it plans to start construction in mid-2027.

Given the current instability in global oil markets and economy caused by the war with Iran, uncertainty about the likelihood of net increases in tar sands extraction efforts, as well as competing development proposals by several other new competing pipelines, it is reasonable to assume that South Bow and Bridger are hedging their bets on this project pending greater clarity on its prospects for commercial success.