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Canada Ping!
Posted on 02/04/2013 5:39:56 AM PST by thackney
Canadians worried US president won’t honor Nebraska governor’s decision
The Canadian government has suddenly turned edgy about hopes of seeing TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline clearing its final regulatory hurdle and spreading fresh optimism among Alberta oil sands and Bakken producers.
Now that Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman has sent a letter to President Barack Obama endorsing TransCanada’s proposed rerouting of the pipeline to avoid the state’s ecologically sensitive Sandhills region, the final verdict rests with the U.S. State Department which must issue a Presidential Permit for any pipeline crossing the Canada-U.S. border.
At the same time a letter signed by 53 U.S. Senators said Heineman’s approval put the long-delayed project squarely in Obama’s hands and urged the president to “choose jobs, economic development and American energy security,” noting that Keystone XL had “gone through the most exhaustive environmental scrutiny of any pipeline” in U.S. history.
Gloomy outlook
However, what should have been the most welcome development for the Canadian government in more than four years of raging battles over the project and its own desire to open up a huge new market on the U.S. Gulf Coast for oil sands crude has instead turned gloomy. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who seldom comments on natural resource matters, told reporters Jan. 27 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Obama’s inaugural speech to launch his second term does not bode well for the pipeline.
By pledging to combat climate change, emphasizing that a “failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” and insisting the U.S. should be a leader in sustainable energy, Obama had effectively eroded the outlook for Keystone XL, Flaherty suggested.
“I had reason for optimism before the election that the president would approve (the pipeline) were he re-elected, but his (inaugural) speech was not encouraging,” he said.
If the 830,000 barrels per day XL pipeline is scuttled it removes the prospect of including about 100,000 bpd of Bakken crude on the system to Cushing, Okla., and accessing TransCanada’s Gulf Coast project to carry 700,000 bpd from Cushing to Nederland, Texas, starting late this year.
Even if XL is sidelined by Obama, Flaherty said Canada “will go wherever we have to go. ... We’re going to create markets for Canadian commodities. And we’ll do it quickly. We have major projects right now on our agenda and we will encourage them.”
Special promise for Bakken
TransCanada Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling, speaking to an investor conference in Whistler, British Columbia, on Jan. 24, noted that XL holds special promise for Bakken crude “which we will be able to attach to it quite readily and quite quickly.” He said 100 percent of the capacity on the Keystone system has already sold out and “if we get the go ahead (for XL) I think we would very quickly move to the contractual underpinning” to debottleneck the movement of crude in the U.S.
Girling said that could include delivering crude to the U.S. and Canadian East Coasts from the oil sands and the Bakken to replace 1.5 million to 2 million bpd of imported crude.
Enbridge Chief Executive Officer Al Monaco, speaking at the same Whistler conference, said his company could make an announcement this year on its C$6 billion market access program for light oil from Western Canada and the Bakken to several eastern points in North America, along with expanding to 850,000 bpd from 400,000 bpd of the Seaway pipeline from Cushing to Port Arthur, Texas, and the completion of a 450,000 bpd Spearhead expansion from Flanagan, Ill., to Cushing.
The state dept is now a sick left wing SOB named John Kerry. This piece ofcrap was opposing oil development 20 years ago, because it would take 10 years to get the oil.
My suggestion is to start building it on either side of the border and by the time it is ready to be joined we may have an American President.
owebama will never approve of anything that generates wealth in the private sector unless said wealth finds its waky back to him in the form of campaign “contributions”.
Would you invest your own money in a company that did business of spending billions while hope the rules change before they completed?
And that's it in a nutshell. The private sector is the (now overtly declared)enemy of this administration. Obama is easily predictable once this is realized.
Winner! Yup, it is not about ecology but an Obama insiders financial affairs.
BTW, it is my understanding the Alaska Pipeline was also fought over phoney ecology concerns in the 60s. The real issue was whose refineries would get the crude.
????
Any more info on that claim?
The governors of each state must do what is best for their citizens and the ability to help economically, by allowing the XL pipeline to pass through their states. There are a lot of jobs waiting to be filled with it’s implementation.
Yeah, the issue was whether the pipeline would allow oil to feed refineries in the mid west and having to negotiate through Canada verse West Coast (and asia) which would have been shut out. Banker buddy of mine passed that on to me long ago alleging the conservation issue was a ruse. Whether or not that is correct, I have not the slightest idea. BTW, unless ANWAR is opened for drilling, the pipeline will have to be removed soon as it will be operating on minimum input in a few years.
How could a pipeline to the West coast for loading on a tanker possibly supply oil to the Mid-West?
How could a pipeline to the West coast for loading on a tanker possibly supply oil to the Mid-West?
Pang?
To all- please ping me to Canadian topics.
Canada Ping!
Hardly edgy. Canada's Prime Minister, Duncan Harper has the China's Energy Ministry on speed dial. Obama is simply using his environmentalist monkies on a leash as an excuse to protect his fudge packing Saudi buddies oil prices around the world. The Chinese are champing at the bit to finnance the construction of a pipe line from the Oil Sands to a spot near Vancouver, crying , " Solly Alabs, you gotcha bad ruck!"
Obama has been in the pockets of the Arab Princes of the House of Saud ever since he bent over and kissed the King of Saud's ring and got the Saudi medal of honor. Obama has been doing the step and fetch for the Saudi Royals since elected. He is the Saudi's ni**er.It is also the reason there is NO exploration or exploitation for oil in the USA which amounts to anything. The delay is simply caused by a lot of head scratching by Obama to try to sabotage the Chinese financed pipeline to come.
The US environmental monkies are the biggest laugh we have seen in decades up here in Canada.And Obama is the biggest joke on America since W.C Fields, whom America back then had the wisdom not to elect as President. The USA has a real joker in charge now.Too bad. Obama is a Saudomite. Here is US energy policy in a picture:
Alah Acubar....Alahhawalahalloo Akbur! And welcome to Canada's oil world of General Pao's NOT Chicken.
Maybe by magic, I am only reporting what my banker told me. Obviously the path would not have been to the water in Prudoe.
Originally there were concerns of the oil going overseas and not to the west coast. Those concerns were by people who didn’t know how to read a map. Japan is 3 times as far away as the lower 48. I first thought you were referring to that concern.
There was never a way to economically build a pipeline a few thousands of miles to reach the mid-west. While it might have been discussed by politicians and other people not understanding economics, it was never a consideration by any oil company.
A draft report in 2001 tangentially mentions the two distinct routes in a discussion about the environmental impact statement decided in court. One of the issues was a the lack of discussion regarding the alternative route through Canada to the mid west. (http://tapseis.anl.gov/documents/docs/Section_13_May2.pdf)
The court ruled that neither plan had any measurable difference to the EIS. The sole differences concerned cost and timing as a route through Canada would cost much more and take longer, this during the energy crisis of the time.
Whether these routes were generated by the oil companies or politicians I don’t know but the alternate route did exist. Given my buddy’s high position in that money center bank, I have no reason to question his info.
As the report you linked stated, it wasn’t seriously evaluated for economic reasons, but was court ordered to evaluate for Environmental Alternatives.
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