CER Pipeline Throughput and Capacity

Use in your agent

Load CER Keystone pipeline data into pandas and Parquet. Checked against the provider's documentation on Nov 1, 2026.

Access

• No account or key. CER publishes separate CSV files for individual pipelines and data dictionaries.

Request

curl -O 'https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/open/energy/throughput-capacity/keystone-throughput-and-capacity.csv'

Format

CSV observations with date, operator, pipeline, key point, coordinates, flow direction, trade type, product, throughput, committed and uncommitted volumes, nameplate and available capacity, and variance reason.

Load into pandas and Parquet

Needs Python 3 with requests, pandas and pyarrow.

"""CER Keystone monthly throughput and capacity -> pandas -> Parquet. No key."""
import io
import requests
import pandas as pd

URL = "https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/open/energy/throughput-capacity/keystone-throughput-and-capacity.csv"
r = requests.get(URL, timeout=60)
r.raise_for_status()
df = pd.read_csv(io.BytesIO(r.content), encoding="utf-8-sig")
df["Date"] = pd.to_datetime(df["Date"], utc=True)
df.to_parquet("cer_keystone_throughput.parquet", index=False)
print(len(df), "rows", df["Date"].min().date().isoformat(), "to",
      df["Date"].max().date().isoformat(), len(df["Key Point"].dropna().unique()), "key points")

Run by us on 2026-11-01 (python 3.13.5 | pandas 3.1.0 | pyarrow 26.0.0 | requests 2.34.2). Result: 522 rows 2010-07-01 to 2026-06-01 1 key points

Limits

• Rate limit: Not stated.
• The catalog is split into separate pipeline CSV files rather than one combined data file.
• Files are updated quarterly and may be refreshed as needed.

Quirks

• The full collection begins in 2006, but individual pipeline histories differ; the checked Keystone file begins in July 2010.
• Oil and liquids records are monthly, while natural-gas records are daily.
• Capacity fields can be blank, and available capacity can differ from nameplate capacity; preserve the variance-reason field.

Terms and attribution

• Open Government Licence – Canada permits lawful reuse, including commercial use.
• Acknowledge the source and, where possible, link to the licence.

Sources

• https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/dc343c43-a592-4a27-8ee7-c77df56afb34: “Oil and liquids pipelines report monthly data and natural gas pipelines report daily data.”
• https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/dc343c43-a592-4a27-8ee7-c77df56afb34: “The dataset covers 2006 to present. Files are updated quarterly but may be refreshed as needed.”
• https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/open/energy/throughput-capacity/oil-pipeline-data-dictionary.csv: “Date,Date data refers to”
• https://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada: “Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.”