The point of Keystone is that it will give the US refineries in OK, TX & LA a freight advantage in $/gallon to transport this heavy crude to their refineries. These plants are the most efficient in turning this type of oil into a finished product. With the shipping advantage, they can pay more FOB Alberta than other refineries.
The main reason for the pipeline is that Alberta is producing more oil than the refineries in Canada and the US that are already taking their oil can use. There are refineries in Edmonton and other places that are taking this heavy sulfur crude oil. Most refineries, like the ones in WA state and California can not refine this product. They are taking the oil from ND that is light sweet crude. The refineries in TX, and LA are already getting this heavy crude. However, the current cost to move it from northern Alberta to a place where it is loaded on a ship is rather expensive. Once it is on the super tanker, the price to move it somewhere in the world goes down significantly. This is what the greenies do not want. IF the cost to deliver this product goes down, they will increase the RAPE of the EARTH in northern CANADA. They hate this oil production method as bad as open pit coal mining. This is the reason why the big fight against Keystone.
Union jobs loading and re-loading the oil tankers, oil barges, oil trains, and oil storage facilities now. Those go away if the pipeline is built -> The pipeline is SAVING the money otherwise needed to pay people in those (democrat) states.
Pipeline employees and pipeline workers are in republican states!
Warren Buffet’s railroads are moving the oil now.
But, through it all, enviro opposition to ANY energy efficiency and lower energy costs ANYWHERE!
Not really NAFTA so much as cost of transportation. Asia is a lot farther away that Washington and California, where they import about a million barrels a day from farther away. Same reason the Alaska oil stays on the west coast even after the export ban was dropped.