Canada's official exit from the Kyoto treaty -- an act undertaken by one of the pact's biggest public supporters -- could be seen as a significant win for the oil sands industry. But that sector is facing a host of other issues, including rising costs. Platts correspondent Gary Park, in this week's Oilgram News column "Petrodollars," reviews the landscape.
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The law Congress passed just before Christmas to force a quicker decision on the Keystone XL pipeline gives the Obama administration two choices: approve or deny TransCanada's application by February 21. Or does it?
This project has been looked at from every angle, and yet we still don't know if those are the only two possible outcomes.
Take the latest comments from the State Department: "That law gives the Secretary of State 60 days from December 23 to either grant a permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline or to justify why a permit is not being granted," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said during the department's daily briefing today.
This project has been looked at from every angle, and yet we still don't know if those are the only two possible outcomes.
Take the latest comments from the State Department: "That law gives the Secretary of State 60 days from December 23 to either grant a permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline or to justify why a permit is not being granted," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said during the department's daily briefing today.
Continue reading Counting down Washington's Keystone XL clock
The endless creativity of the market may make Keystone XL unnecessary.
That was the unstated yet clear message delivered Tuesday to the New York Energy Forum by Martin Tallett, president of ENSYS, a research firm that worked for both the Department of Energy and the Department of State on TransCanada's Keystone XL application. A final decision on the project, which needs State Dept. approval to cross the border from Canada to the US, has been deferred to 2013 by the Obama Administration.
Some immediate thoughts on the delay of the White House/State Department acting on the Keystone XL pipeline.
Continue reading Keystone XL: first reactions on the State Dept. move
Two scholars at the Center for Strategic and International Studies have a really sharp analysis out on the drama surrounding TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline.
Senior fellows Sarah Ladislaw and David Pumphrey write that the Obama administration's task of making a national interest determination on the project has become impossibly fraught given the level of controversy. And it hasn't handled the challenge well, they argue.
Watchers of the Keystone XL pipeline saw the US State Department's final environmental review as a sign the Obama administration will approve the permit. The uncertainty has since shifted to the heartland, where Nebraska politicians in particular have amplified their objections to the pipeline's route over the Ogallala Aquifer.
Some comments from and about the Cornhusker State:
Some comments from and about the Cornhusker State:
With celebrities getting arrested in the wake of last week's decision on the environmental suitability of the Keystone XL pipeline, it's time to take a look at just what is going to flow through it should it be approved.
So The Barrel spoke with Platts' head of
It's said that the line will be carrying "oil sands" or "tar sands." No; it will be carrying oil, though mostly produced from oil sands. Here's his overview:
Continue reading A primer on just what it is that would move down Keystone XL
As the debate continues over whether the US State Department will approve the cross-border permit needed to build the Keystone XL Pipeline (some past stories here and here), there are plenty of other initiatives that can break the logjam at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point of the New York Mercantile Exchange crude contract.
(Update: this posting reflects the cancellation by Enterprise and Energy Transfer Partners of its planned Cushing-Houston pipeline, announced shortly after the blog was initially posted.)
TransCanada CEO Russ Girling can rattle off a batch of numbers without taking a breath: 20,000 jobs, 118,000 spinoff jobs, $20 billion in economic stimulus and $5.2 billion in incremental tax revenue to states.
Those are the benefits that the pipeline company says will flow into the United States from Canada's oil sands if the Department of State allows it to build the Keystone XL pipeline. The 1,660-mile system would carry crude from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast.
It's been unquestioned conventional wisdom.
Eventually, everybody knows that the US State Dept. will approve the Keystone XL pipeline. It will take lots of crude coming out of Canada's oil sands on a journey down through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska on its way to Cushing, Oklahoma. From there, a spur will open up a new route to bring the growing Cushing surpluses to the Gulf of Mexico. All the growing opposition will be ignored. Right?
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