CN Estimates About $0.03 EPS Impact From Elk Valley Routing Change in 2027

Canadian National Railway Company (CN) expects a change to Elk Valley Resources’ (EVR) coal-routing arrangement to affect earnings per share (EPS) by about $0.03 in 2027, Chief Commercial Officer Janet Drysdale said Oct. 30.

“The impact of this is about $0.03 of EPS to us in 2027,” Drysdale said on CN’s earnings call, which began at 8:30 a.m. ET. She did not identify whether the amount was in U.S. or Canadian dollars.

Under the revised route, about half of EVR traffic bound for Neptune will travel on Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) to Kamloops before CN takes it to the terminal. The other half will move farther along the line before transferring to CN, which will still complete delivery.

Drysdale said CN’s commercial team was “laser-focused on backfilling those contribution dollars with other opportunities.”

CN reaffirmed its 2026 outlook for adjusted diluted EPS growth in the mid- to high-single digits, based on low-single-digit growth in revenue ton-miles. It said results were tracking toward the upper end of the range. For the quarter ended Sept. 30, adjusted diluted EPS rose 18% to C$2.16 from C$1.83 a year earlier, while revenue ton-miles increased 4% to 59,383 million. The figures were part of CN’s third-quarter results.

The routing change follows a five-year agreement between CPKC and EVR that takes effect Jan. 1, 2027. The deal expands CPKC’s share of steelmaking coal shipments from EVR’s four British Columbia mines to Vancouver’s Westshore and Neptune terminals.