while the environmentalists have focused on the XL pipeline.. another is already being built to move Canadian crude to the US refineries..
so it looks like it is just a matter of time before Canadian crude hits our refineries or bypasses US all together..
the latest set back for the XL pipeline is a new investigation into the company that made the environmental report.. seems it is a scandal to do more then one environmental report of a company... :shock: :roll: :roll: :shock: :roll: :?
the left and environmentalists delay tactics sink to a new low every year... I sure would like to be around the day we have to shut off power to their smug little world... "dude, my ipad isn't working turn the light on so I can plug in the charger' "..
while Keystone XL languishes, a rival pipeline plan is speeding through the approval process.
One of TransCanada’s rivals, Enbridge Inc., has quietly been moving ahead with a slightly smaller pipeline project that could be piping 660,000 barrels of crude per day to the gulf by 2015. (The Keystone line would carry 700,000 barrels per day.) For environmentalists hoping that blocking the Keystone pipeline would choke the carbon-intensive development of the Canadian tar sands, the Enbridge Eastern Gulf pipeline would be a disaster.
The 774-mile pipeline would run from Patoka, Ill., to St. James, La., alleviating a pipeline bottleneck in the Midwest, where the shale oil from North Dakota’s Bakken formation meets the flow from Alberta’s oil sands, overwhelming the capacity of the current pipelines. And although 200 miles of pipe destined for Keystone XL sits collecting dust in North Dakota with no shipping date in sight, the bulk of the Eastern Gulf project is already built — almost three-quarters of it will be repurposed natural gas line. Without the public outcry that has bogged down Keystone, the project has flown along smoothly under the radar.
The Eastern Gulf line is only one piece of a larger plan. Enbridge is building a 5,000-mile network of pipelines that would far overshadow the potential impact of the Keystone line. And TransCanada has new plans in the works in case President Obama blocks the Keystone project. Earlier this month, the company announced its plan for a new venture that would link eastern and western Canada, providing an outlet for Alberta’s booming oil-sands producers. And the Canadian ambassador to the United States has vowed to ship crude to U.S. refineries on trains if the pipelines aren’t approved.
The recent news about the latest hitches for the Keystone XL pipeline may have cheered its opponents. But they’re going to have to start thinking a lot bigger if they want to block further tar-sands oil development entirely.
comment said:The beauty of it is that a presidential permit won't be required since Enbridge will get most of the cross border expansion through increasing the horsepower of the section that crosses the border. That's risky due to increased pressure but the opposition left little choice.
so it looks like it is just a matter of time before Canadian crude hits our refineries or bypasses US all together..
the latest set back for the XL pipeline is a new investigation into the company that made the environmental report.. seems it is a scandal to do more then one environmental report of a company... :shock: :roll: :roll: :shock: :roll: :?
A top expert who helped write the government's latest Keystone report previously consulted on three different TransCanada projects.
State released documents in conjunction with the Keystone report in which these experts' work histories were redacted so that anyone reading the documents wouldn't know who'd previously hired them. Yet unredacted versions of these documents obtained by Mother Jones confirm that three experts working for an outside contractor had done consulting work for TransCanada and other oil companies with a stake in the Keystone's approval.
Outside contractors (managed by the State Department) wrote the Keystone report, which neither endorsed nor rejected the Keystone pipeline. The contractor that produced the bulk of the report was Environmental Resources Management (ERM), an international consulting firm.
TransCanada spokesman Grady Semmens said that although the company paid for ERM's analysis (as is common practice), TransCanada did not control what State and ERM released to the public. "The Department of State was responsible for posting the conflict of interest statements and has complete control over all activities of ERM,"
The State Department’s Office of the Inspector General said that it is investigating a possible conflict-of-interest issue in the project’s environmental impact study. The inspector general is probing whether the company that produced the environmental impact study, Environmental Resource Management, failed to disclose its past working relationship with TransCanada, the company building the pipeline.
the left and environmentalists delay tactics sink to a new low every year... I sure would like to be around the day we have to shut off power to their smug little world... "dude, my ipad isn't working turn the light on so I can plug in the charger' "..