I would make this observation. If the Keystone oil was pumped through the US and stayed in the US (that’s likely not the real plan), then it would have a serious affect on world oil prices. I’d be guessing a barrel would be no more than $60 if the US suddenly had a ample supply. The Saudis would be very unhappy.
Just like the assumptions about global warming, Freon R12 and so many more, it all started as so called studies by effected industries, especially Dupont, who also created the so-called environmentalist groups to raise our awareness to each new cataclysmic human production.
We know that AGW is a bunch of bull generated by money grabbing governments and socially inept "scientists" incapable of sustaining a lifestyle they chose by its commensurate market worth.
Dupont was losing its worldwide patent on R12 and some evidence is at hand about how they funded the initial "ozone hole" studies and created a worldwide panic over something that has been occurring naturally at the poles during the respective winter months at each since the dawn of time. The result was to outlaw R12 and those set to compete against Dupont and usher in the new "greener" R134a as the approved refrigerant which is not nearly as efficient as R12. Is it not amazing how the Ozone hole issue went away almost overnight?
As for the oil situation, just as the AGW zealots purposefully disregard the Sun as a controlling factor of our climate, another crowd conveniently disregards the natural smelter boiling miles below our feet as having anything to do with the pressures of gas and oil fields but are quick to herald its presence to explain Iceland and Yosemite. Add my contention about the myth of oil production foisted by the "Dupont" industrial factor and the world would be a different place altogether. The sands of the Arabian desert just might become more valuable to them for the silica industry than is the extraction of oil beneath it.
The plan is to refine the heavy oil in Texas/Louisiana where the refineries are already buying and refining heavy oil from Venezuela. That will compete with/displace the Venezuelan oil, putting downward pressure on world oil prices.
Another bonus for the US is that Keystone will pass the Bakken field, picking up domestic production that is shut in now from lack of transportation.
Nonsense. The US is still the world's largest importer of oil. We import more crude oil than we produce ourselves.
Delivering crude oil to markets farther away would only reduce their profits by increasing the transportation cost of a globally fungible commodity. We pay market prices. That is why OPEC nations sell us as much oil as we produce in Texas, North Dakota, Alaska, California, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Colorado combined.
US Crude Oil Production by State: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbblpd_m.htm
U.S. Crude Oil Imports by Country of Origin
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epc0_im0_mbblpd_m.htm