Enbridge aims to help North America win from the AI boom and the Iran war as the FedEx of energy

With assets that span renewables to utilities, Enbridge boasts a broad array of businesses that’s matched by the lofty role it sees itself playing on the world stage. Enbridge—whose name is a contraction of energy bridge—is committed to keeping the economic and cultural bonds between North America’s neighbors strong and healthy; it doesn’t hurt that CEO Greg Ebel, a dual citizen, is an unofficial diplomatic whisperer to the White House and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney helping to ease tensions between the two.

Enbridge is positioning itself to help power the AI data center boom and to lead oil and gas exports for the world as the war in the Middle East places more emphasis on secure American supplies—capturing all the key facets of the industry’s growth. For good measure, Enbridge even develops offshore wind farms in Europe.

“We want to be the first choice for energy delivery in North America and beyond,” Ebel said, sitting down with Fortune.

“One of the unfortunate—but positive for North America—outcomes of this Middle East situation will be a greater recognition that there’s less of a risk premium needed in North America,” Ebel said. “I think that’s an upside for Canada and the United States and for infrastructure players like us.”

Scaling up for ‘energy dominance’

Apart from becoming the preeminent pipeline player, Enbridge is the fourth-largest Canadian company by market cap, trailing Shopify. Enbridge ranks one spot above Netflix in the Fortune Global 500. And, to complete the delivery circle, Enbridge exceeds both FedEx and UPS in market cap. In fact, its market value is on par with Big Oil giant BP.

Splitting his time between Calgary and Houston, Ebel has helped Enbridge expand to 43 U.S. states and eight of the 10 Canadian provinces. Enbridge also pipes U.S. natural gas directly to Mexico. Enbridge moves nearly one-third of North American oil and 20% of U.S. natural gas.

“We like being part of that North American energy dominance play,” he said. “The company, by design, is bi-cultural.”

Ebel even alternates between hockey and baseball metaphors. Looking at projected growth for renewables, natural gas, and oil exports, he said Enbridge “skated to the puck in multiple areas.”

And, focusing on infrastructure expansions and modest acquisitions, he added, “You’re not going for home runs; you’re going for singles and doubles.”

Through its expanding Mainline pipeline network, Enbridge is the top exporter of Canadian oil into the U.S., and—out of its Texas Ingleside hub—it’s the top exporter of U.S. oil to the rest of the world. Enbridge is building more pipelines to service the construction boom of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals along the U.S. Gulf Coast, and Enbridge’s Woodfibre LNG terminal is slated to come online in 2027 in British Columbia as Canada’s West Coast becomes a growing LNG exporter to Asia.

The pipeliner is even top gas utility player in the U.S. and Canada, and it’s now building gas pipelines and solar farms to service hyperscalers’ data centers. It’s working closely with Google, Amazon, Meta, and more. Enbridge last year announced a massive solar farm campus to power a Meta data center complex outside of San Antonio. And it recently built the big Sequoia solar farm in Texas for Toyota and AT&T.

“In all of our businesses, both on the renewable side and the gas distribution and transmission side, we are hooking up or building projects for data centers for AI,” Ebel said.

White House whisperer

A native of Ottawa, before entering the energy sector, Ebel worked in the Canadian government and then with the World Bank in Washington, gaining a sharp literacy in North American politics.

That early career experience is serving him well now. From President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada and repeated taunts about making Canada the 51st state, Ebel has managed to help keep Canadian oil above the fray.

“There have not been, nor do I believe there will be, discussion of tariffs on Canadian energy coming south,” Ebel said, noting how crude oil is excluded from the tariffs. “It’s too important to energy dominance.”

He acknowledged he’s taking a lot more phone calls these days from the Trump and Carney administrations, the latter of whom is moving the Liberal Party to support more oil and gas pipelines. And Ebel is happy to help bridge any gaps between the two countries.

“Trade tensions are always going to be there,” Ebel said. “You’ve got big brother and little brother, but it is one North American family.

“I feel confident that symbiotic relationship will continue to be the ultimate driving force, despite whether we win or lose a gold medal in Olympic hockey, which is a sore point for a lot of Canadians,” he added with a laugh.

In April, Trump issued a presidential permit to Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline for the St. Clair River border crossing between Michigan and Ontario. Enbridge’s Line 5 tunnel project in the Great Lakes’ Straits of Mackinac remains under review and hotly contested for environmental reasons. But it’s good to have political allies in powerful places.

While the war in Iran is potentially placing more demand on North American oil and gas, the U.S. military operation in Venezuela to arrest former leader Nicolas Maduro potentially created more competition for Enbridge.

After all, the Canadian oil sands produce a heavier grade of crude, as does Venezuela. That could create more competition with the U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that are built to process a lot of heavier oil.

But Ebel isn’t concerned, he said. While it falls short of a “nothing burger,” he said, the refineries may end up desiring more heavy crude overall, which is good for Venezuela and Canada. And, if Venezuela produces more additional oil than anticipated, then that’s just more oil for Enbridge to export overseas, he said.

Domestic and foreign demand

Calgary-based Enbridge got its start in 1949 as the Interprovincial Pipe Line Company (IPL). As the company expanded more into the U.S., IPL changed its name in 1998 to Enbridge.

That same year, Ebel left politics and banking to enter the oil and gas sector, joining Vancouver-based Westcoast Energy as a vice president. Westcoast was acquired by Charlotte-based Duke Energy. Ebel then moved to Houston with Duke’s gas pipeline spinoff business, Spectra Energy, rising to CEO in 2009. Enbridge acquired Spectra in 2016, and Ebel was promoted to CEO in 2023. Essentially, he kept getting acquired and promoted.

Much of his career rise focused on natural gas, and that’s where Ebel sees the most bullish growth, both for global exports from the U.S. and Canada, and to power the AI boom. The Iran war is bolstering that argument even more.

“At least for a very long time, people will wonder about the security of supply from that [Middle East] region. I think that’s a real winner for North American LNG that is safe and secure,” Ebel said. “It seems like, if you look at the fundamentals—and we’ve been big believers—that the demand for LNG is going to be ferocious right through the 2030s.”

Within North America, Ebel also aims to take advantage of the largest surge of electricity demand in many decades, largely thanks to AI.

That means building or expanding gas distribution and pipelines to hyperscalers’ campuses or building new infrastructure to the integrated utility companies servicing the data centers. And Enbridge will even build renewable energy directly for hyperscalers, such as in Texas.

“If you can offer them lots of different choices, you’re probably going to be the winner in this arms race,” Ebel said. It helps to be agnostic to the energy sources and offer up everything for the customers to choose from, he said.

Scale matters, and Enbridge has the size to do just that, he said.

“North America is just in the catbird seat from both the oil and the gas perspective.”