Should Obama approve the Keystone XL pipeline?

Yeah, it is, in actual terms of affecting oil shipped, Keystone XL is pretty unimportant.

The only notable thing about Keystone XL is the media attention it generated.

It's pretty easy to stop drilling tar sand.
 
Yeah, it is, in actual terms of affecting oil shipped, Keystone XL is pretty unimportant.

The only notable thing about Keystone XL is the media attention it generated.

Pretty unimportant? :cowboy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline
The Keystone XL Pipeline Project (Phase IV) revised proposal in 2012 consists of a new 36-inch (910 mm) pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta, through Montana and South Dakota to Steele City, Nebraska, to "transport of up to 830,000 barrels per day (132,000 m3/d) of crude oil from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta, Canada, and from the Williston Basin (Bakken) region in Montana and North Dakota, primarily to refineries in the Gulf Coast area."[8]

Almost 10% of what the USA produces is a significant amount of oil.


Won't matter. The oil companies have already decided that Keystone did not make financial sense in the first place.

Huh? All the actions I've seen indicated the oil companies wanted it.
On January 9, 2015 the U.S. House voted 266–153 in favor of the pipeline. On the same day, the Nebraska Supreme Court cleared the way for construction, after Republican Governor Dave Heineman had approved of it in 2013.[59]

A bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline was passed by the Senate (62–36) on January 29, 2015,[60] and by the House (270–152) on February 11, 2015.[61] President Obama vetoed the bill on February 24, 2015, arguing that the decision of approval should rest with the Executive Branch.[62] The Senate was unable to override the veto by a two-thirds majority, with a 62-37 vote.[63]

Transcanada sued Nebraska landowners who refused permission allowing for pipeline easements on their properties, in order to exercise eminent domain over such use. However, on September 29, 2015, it dropped its lawsuits and acceded to the authority of the elected, five-member Nebraska Public Service Commission, which has the state constitutional authority to approve gas and oil pipelines.[64]

On November 6, 2015, the Obama government rejected the pipeline, stating that "The Keystone XL pipeline does not serve the national interests of the United States". This decision also affects US-Canada relations between Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau.[65]

Why would TransCanada sue landowners if they didn't want the pipeline?
Why lobby to get nearly 2/3rds of Congress to approve the pipeline if they didn't want it?

On January 22, 2008, ConocoPhillips acquired a 50% stake in the project.[34] On June 17, 2009, TransCanada agreed that they would buy out ConocoPhillips' share in the project and revert to being the sole owner.[19] It took TransCanada more than two years to acquire all the necessary state and federal permits for the pipeline. Construction took another two years.[35] The pipeline, from Hardisty, Alberta, Canada, to Patoka, Illinois, United States, became operational in June 2010.[23]

Seems pro-pipeline to me.

We can do that now without the Pipeline. Because, see, they can't sell it to anyone else right now.

Sure, the oil may have to physically run through our fingers if the pipeline is there but right now it does that anyways, except it doesn't have anywhere to end up right now except us. We already have Canada's oil secured, building a pipeline allowing them to sell to other Non-USA countries would make it less secure. And its not like we can force them to pump oil into our pipeline if they just refuse to pump it anywhere.

We would have loved to keep all of Iraq's oil, but see the greedy companies that paid off their congressman wouldn't make as much money that way.

This argument appeals to me, much like the rarely used argument that we shouldn't drill Alaska so we can save that oil for later.
Here is the Keystone XL pipeline we are all arguing over:



Keystone XL is the green one that just got rejected by Obama after 7 years :rolleyes: of review.
All the other little keystone pipelines on that map have already been built.

The red one can pump up to 860,000 barrels of oil per day, and delivers Canadian oil along with bakken oil from North Dakota to refineries in Illinois, oil storage in Cushing, and the Texas coastal refineries that can ship oil and gas/diesel around the world.

Keystone XL(green) would be a 2nd duplicate artery transporting mostly Canadian oil and a bit of Montana oil down to Steele City, Nebraska where it connects to the main keystone pipeline junction.
From there a bit could go east to Illinois refineries, but most of it would go south to storage in Cushing or to the south coast refineries for processing and probable export.


Now that we have rejected Keystone XL, the Canadians will have to muddle through with trucks and rail with all the excess that can't be squeezed into the red keystone pipeline that our North Dakota drillers will also be using.

We already have Canada's oil secured, building a pipeline allowing them to sell to other Non-USA countries would make it less secure. And its not like we can force them to pump oil into our pipeline if they just refuse to pump it anywhere.

This is where I disagree mainly.
Oil is a global commodity, so as long as we are importing more than we produce "more oil on the world market = better" for the USA.
And it is easier during an emergency to grab a 800,000 bpd pipeline full of oil that leads directly to our oil storage and refinery processors than a grab-bag of trucks and railcars that can go anywhere.

But I can sort of see your point, so I'll lay off in this thread. :)


Finally, a double check since we are debating things we read about on the internet, proof that all but that green line already exists from January 2015:
http://www.politifact.com/texas/sta...-says-keystone-pipeline-through-texas-create/

Cornyn continued: "It’s unfortunate that the President would shut down this bipartisan legislation. In Texas, we’ve seen the direct positive impact of the pipeline on the local and state economy. The Texas leg of the project, which delivers more than 400,000 barrels of crude oil from Cushing, OK to Southeast Texas each day, has already created 4,800 jobs in just the year it's been up and running."

Ya, those 4,800 jobs are now gone of course.
 
I just read about this incident in another thread on this forum (article posted by ReindeerThistle in his "[RD] News Thread of the Americas" thread):

Wisconsin Sees 2 Train Derailments Over Weekend, Both Resulting In Spills

The oil is going to be produced anyway.
Wouldn't we be better off having it transported by pipeline rather than by rail or truck?

First off, one of the spills wasn't even oil.

Second, to answer your question, NO we wouldn't be better off. The other spill was a fairly typical train derailment spill of less than a thousand gallons. Pipeline spills are generally measured in barrels, if not tons. While it is easy and true to say that trucks and rail have more spills, their spills generally involve the local fire department hazmat team. Pipeline spills are major ecological disasters that require gigantic clean up efforts that don't actually work, they just reduce the damage.
 
It's all complete except for the green one. The 4800 jobs were for construction. Once it is complete, permanent jobs are on the order of 100-200, plus money into local economies. You will see even that number low balled. It really is not that big a project. Politically it is much bigger.

I don't take people seriously if they call it "tar sand".
You prefer calling it asphalt?

J
 
Except it doesn't cost them that amount of capacity, it just costs them the difference between that and the next best thing they can do for $8 billion.

As Keystone fight drags on, oil industry quietly expands pipeline network

Of course it costs them some amount of capacity.
Next best transportation method is more expensive, so less oil can be profitably produced for the market.


That article is 99% talking about pipeline expansion it the US.
There is 1 mention of Canada.

Even TransCanada has been busy. The company unveiled a 200-mile, $600-million proposal late last month that would carry oil from North Dakota’s Bakken field north to Canada and connect to other lines that can take it to the East Coast.

“When Keystone was first announced, I think that was something like a third of (TransCanada’s) expected budget,” said DeSai, the Edward Jones analyst. “TransCanada now has had so many projects that now Keystone’s a much smaller percentage.”

President Barack Obama has said his decision on Keystone, which would take Canadian tar sands oil to Gulf Coast refineries, would depend in part on its possible contribution to global warming. He is awaiting a State Department report on its environmental impact.

But the State Department does not review pipelines that are entirely inside the United States, which is the vast majority of them.

Thank goodness for that last bit! :banana:


Now that Obama has staked the vampire, we can go ahead and discuss option #2 then. :)
Energy East, the pipeline running 2000 miles east across Canada!
http://news.yahoo.com/transcanada-s...e-investors-skeptical-170658791--finance.html

U.S. rejection of Keystone gives TransCanada a "more focused argument" for needing Energy East, said FirstEnergy Capital analyst Steven Paget, as the company seeks to win over Canada's two most populous provinces, Ontario and Quebec.

Keystone's rejection boosts the case for Energy East "volumetrically," said Wood Mackenzie analyst Skip York.

"It provides clarity to the industry about what options are going to be there and helps the Canadian government move forward on what their position is going to be."

Without Keystone, oil producers may face a pipeline capacity crunch.

Energy East faces no lighter scrutiny however, and environmentalists are preparing for a fight.

"The victory with Keystone XL really energizes the already very substantial movement against (Energy East)," said Adam Scott, climate program manager for Environmental Defence Canada. "The arguments for rejecting Keystone XL apply to Energy East even more so - there's more oil and the risk of tankers (transporting oil) on the east coast of Canada."

Canada's newly elected Liberal government reiterated it was prepared to support domestic pipelines like Energy East, but only if there was buy-in from local communities.


'COMMITTED' TO KEYSTONE

TransCanada Chief Executive Russ Girling said the company and its shippers "remain absolutely committed" to Keystone and that "misplaced symbolism was chosen over merit and science."

Girling said one option is a new application for a U.S. presidential permit for a Canada-U.S. pipeline.

TransCanada shares, which sank on news of the rejection, closed down 4.3 percent at C$43.32 in Toronto.

"It’s not good for any company to lose a project that represents more than 10 percent of its current EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and that it has already invested C$2.8 billion into," Paget said. "There will probably have to be a writedown."

David Cockfield, portfolio manager at Northland Wealth Management, which owns TransCanada shares, said investors shouldn't be surprised.

"If anybody thought it was somehow going to get approved, boy, I don't know what planet they were on," he said.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_East
The Energy East pipeline is a proposed oil pipeline in Canada. It would deliver oil from Western Canada to Eastern Canada, from receipt points in Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries and port terminals in New Brunswick and possibly Quebec. The TransCanada Pipelines project would convert about 3,000 kilometres of natural gas pipeline, which currently carries natural gas from Alberta to the Ontario-Quebec border, to oil transportation. New pipeline, pump stations, and tank facilities would also be constructed. The CA$12 billion pipeline would be the longest in North America when complete.
28% more expensive than Keystone XL after converting Candian dollars to US?
$2.8 billion already lost?

Thanks Obama.
Our allies' appreciation grows ever fonder.
 
Not in the capacity they want to ship it in. Also, it still doesn't benefit the USA overall to build this thing.

I would like to see a rationale for this. It is not that big a project, but the US seems to have a clear benefit. If nothing else, a significant source that does not have to go on water is valuable. another benefit is that this oil would largely supplant Venezuela, which is considered a good thing.

J
 
So Obama is supposed to disadvantage the U.S. in order to make selling oil for Canada easier?

When the Canadians complete their more expensive eastward pipeline, the U.S. will having nothing except losses to show from this strategic error.
The price discount will be gone and the oil will be out of our hands.

Only if Canada also kills their pipeline will Obama arguably have made a decent decision.
 
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