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Keystone XL pipeline’s strategic worth debated

A former White House official said the Keystone XL pipeline could be a strategic asset, though Sierra Club’s director said it’s not worth the climate threats. The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony Thursday over whether or not the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada is in the national interest. Proposed more than five years ago by pipeline company TransCanada, the project has become the scapegoat for debates over U.S. energy policy. James Jones , a retired Marine general who served as national security adviser to President Obama , told the Senate approving Keystone XL would rival "international bullies" who are using energy as a weapon. With geopolitical tensions in Ukraine tied to Russia’s influence over Eastern European energy markets, Jones said denying Keystone would help the Kremlin’s position. "There is no doubt in my mind that the outcome [of the Keystone […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Keystone XL pipeline's strategic worth debated

A former White House official said the Keystone XL pipeline could be a strategic asset, though Sierra Club’s director said it’s not worth the climate threats. The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony Thursday over whether or not the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada is in the national interest. Proposed more than five years ago by pipeline company TransCanada, the project has become the scapegoat for debates over U.S. energy policy. James Jones , a retired Marine general who served as national security adviser to President Obama , told the Senate approving Keystone XL would rival "international bullies" who are using energy as a weapon. With geopolitical tensions in Ukraine tied to Russia’s influence over Eastern European energy markets, Jones said denying Keystone would help the Kremlin’s position. "There is no doubt in my mind that the outcome [of the Keystone […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Harper Sees Keystone Approval, With or Without Obama

As far as Stephen Harper is concerned, history and economics carry far more weight in Canada-U.S. relations than whoever happens to occupy the White House at a given moment. That’s why Canada ’s prime minister remains relatively unperturbed about the drawn-out Keystone XL pipeline review, maintaining its approval is “inevitable.” In a wide-ranging interview on energy policy in his Ottawa office last month, Harper described how historical and economic forces and broad-based support for resource development determine whether projects like Keystone get built, rather than short-term political calculations. If Barack Obama doesn’t approve the pipeline, another president will. “It is, in my judgment, a necessary and inevitable victory,” Harper said in a Jan. 16 interview as he awaited a State Department environmental assessment of the project. “I absolutely believe that. I can’t see how it will be otherwise.” Moving Crude Through the […]

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TransCanada’s U.S. oil pipeline set for January service

Oil should be moving through the 485-mile Gulf Coast oil pipeline from Oklahoma by the middle of January, a spokesman for TransCanada said Wednesday. The Gulf Coast project from the oil storage hub in Cushing, Okla., is designed to carry as much as 700,000 barrels per day to refineries in the Houston area. TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said customers can expect oil deliveries by Jan. 22. "This is another important milestone for TransCanada, our shippers and the refiners on the U.S. Gulf Coast who have been waiting for this product to arrive," he was quoted as saying by The Oklahoman , a newspaper based in Oklahoma City. "Providing this notice gives our customers time to ensure that they have the appropriate volumes of oil to move into our system when the pipeline is ready to go into full commercial operation." The Gulf Coast […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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TransCanada's U.S. oil pipeline set for January service

Oil should be moving through the 485-mile Gulf Coast oil pipeline from Oklahoma by the middle of January, a spokesman for TransCanada said Wednesday. The Gulf Coast project from the oil storage hub in Cushing, Okla., is designed to carry as much as 700,000 barrels per day to refineries in the Houston area. TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said customers can expect oil deliveries by Jan. 22. "This is another important milestone for TransCanada, our shippers and the refiners on the U.S. Gulf Coast who have been waiting for this product to arrive," he was quoted as saying by The Oklahoman , a newspaper based in Oklahoma City. "Providing this notice gives our customers time to ensure that they have the appropriate volumes of oil to move into our system when the pipeline is ready to go into full commercial operation." The Gulf Coast […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Keystone Backed in Poll by 56% of Americans as Energy Security

More Americans view the Keystone XL oil pipeline as a benefit to U.S. energy security than as an environmental risk, even as they say Canada should do more to reduce greenhouse gases in exchange for approval of the project. A Bloomberg National Poll shows support for the $5.4 billion link between Alberta ’s oil sands and U.S. Gulf Coast refineries remains strong, with 56 percent of respondents viewing it as a chance to reduce dependence on oil imports from less reliable trading partners. That compares with the 35 percent who say they see it more as a potential source of damaging oil spills and harmful greenhouse gas emissions. A push by environmental groups against the project may be affecting public opinion: 58 percent of poll respondents say they want Canada to take steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as a condition for approval, with 32 percent opposing such a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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US pipeline conversions, gas flow reversals raise safety concerns

In the rush to accommodate shifting US natural gas supply patterns, there are worries that pipeline safety could get short shrift in companies’ plans to reverse flows or switch to oil and liquids transportation, particularly as federal standards do not specifically address such changes, observers say. “We’re in the era of multi-billion-dollar projects,” Richard Kuprewicz, president of pipeline safety consultant Accufacts, told this week’s Pipeline Safety Trust annual meeting in New Orleans. And that can lead to what he calls the “Space Shuttle syndrome,” in which the “pressure to launch can overcome safety considerations.” “Pipelines are undergoing a fundamental rebalancing” in North America as large volumes of shale gas come online, he said. And converting an older gas pipeline to a new purpose, such as carrying natural gas liquids from the Marcellus Shale south to the Gulf Coast or reversing the flow […]

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Texas town evacuated after Chevron pipeline explosion

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A pipeline operated by Chevron Corp exploded in rural Milford, Texas, on Thursday and while no injuries were reported residents of the town of 700 were asked to evacuate, said company and emergency officials. Chevron did not identify the line, but it is the majority owner of a 2,295-mile common-carrier pipeline system that transports natural gas liquids from New Mexico and Texas to Mont Belvieu, Texas for processing. Atlas Pipeline Partners has a 20 percent interest in the West Texas LPG Pipeline Limited Partnership, which is 80 percent owned by Chevron. Tom Hemrick, director of Hill County Emergency Management, told KTVT-TV in Dallas that a construction crew accidentally drilled into a 10-inch liquified petroleum gas (LPG) line. All workers on the construction crew were accounted for. "The fire is definitely getting smaller," Hemrick said. Another 14-inch line sits a few feet from the one that exploded […]

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Redford sees rail problems entering the Keystone XL debate

Some US officials raised greenhouse gas concerns as increasing amounts of Alberta’s heavy crude oil move by rail while approval of the Keystone XL pipeline’s cross-border permit continues to be delayed, Premier Allison Redford said after concluding her fifth Washington visit to lobby for the project. “A lot of that product is being transported by rail at the moment, and that is something that is receiving quite a bit of attention in the United States, partly because we know that transportation by rail leads to higher greenhouse gas emissions than a pipeline would,” The Financial Post reported Redford as saying. The premier met with officials at the US Department of State , which is expected to conclude its environmental impact statement early in 2014 on TransCanada Corp.’s revised application for a cross-border permit, as well as US Senate and House leaders. The proposed 1,179-mile pipeline would move diluted bitumen […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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