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Kerry Wants Keystone Pipeline Decision ‘Sooner Rather Than Later’

OTTAWA, Oct 28 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday during a visit to Canada that he would like to make a decision soon on TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL crude oil pipeline. TransCanada has waited more than six years for the Obama administration to make a decision on the line, which would take as much as 830,000 barrels per day of Alberta tar sands crude to refineries on Texas’ Gulf Coast. The State Department is now awaiting the results of a court challenge on the line’s routing through Nebraska and completing its own study on the need for the line before it makes a final recommendation to President Barack Obama on whether to grant the project a presidential permit. The permit would allow the line, which faces critcism from environmentalists, to cross from Canada into the United States. While Kerry said he would like a […]

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BP to close TANAP deal by year’s end

BP confirms it will close on deal to take stake in Turkish natural gas pipeline by the end of the year. UPI/Alexis C. Glenn LONDON, Oct. 28 (UPI) — BP confirmed Tuesday an agreement to take a 12 percent stake in a Turkish pipeline carrying Azeri gas to Europe will close by the end of the year. BP-Azerbaijan in January 2013 signed a framework agreement to take on a 12 percent stake in the Trans-Anatolian natural gas project. The State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic has a majority stake in the pipeline. "We expect to take a 12 percent stake in TANAP by the end of the year," a BP spokesman confirmed to UPI. BP has awarded more than $1 billion in development contracts since selecting the Trans-Adriatic pipeline as its option to carry natural gas from the Shah Deniz field off the coast of Azerbaijan last year. The […]

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Keystone Foes Energized as Price Pinch Oil Sand Allure

Falling oil prices have energized opponents of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. U.S. benchmark crude has tumbled 10 percent this month, closing at $81.01 a barrel in New York trading last week, and further declines are forecast. At $75, a government analysis said producers may be discouraged from developing Canada ’s oil sands without pipelines like Keystone. “It changes the narrative quite a bit,” Anthony Swift, an international lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington , said of the tumble in crude prices. The pace of oil-sands production is key in the debate over Keystone, a Canada-to-U.S. line TransCanada Corp. (TRP) proposed in September 2008 when oil was more than $100 a barrel. Environmentalists oppose developing oil sands because the process releases more greenhouse gases than other types of crude. President Barack Obama has said he won’t approve the $10 billion project if it would significantly exacerbate […]

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Kinder wants to expand shale pipeline system

Kinder Morgan considers expanding pipeline network to take on more shale natural gas. (UPI/Shutterstock/tcly) HOUSTON, Oct. 17 (UPI) — Expanding a gas system in the U.S. Midwest will facilitate the utilization of shale gas from the Utica and Marcellus plays, pipeline company Kinder Morgan said. Kinder Morgan operates and owns a 20 percent interest in systems for Natural Gas Pipeline Co. It said it was soliciting industry interest in the possible expansion of a pipeline system in Illinois to carry another 430 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. "This project will enable Chicago-area markets to diversify their gas supply portfolios and access additional prolific gas production from the Utica and Marcellus shale areas," Kinder Morgan Natural Gas Pipelines Central Region President David Devine said in a statement Thursday. Total production from Utica shale should increase from 155 million cubic feet per day in January 2012 to an […]

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Plunging oil prices a game-changer for major pipeline projects

A sharp correction in oil prices is putting the debate around major pipeline projects, such as Keystone XL, into a more nuanced light. Part of the impetus behind constructing new pipelines to carry bitumen from northern Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast, Kitimat on the Pacific, or even all the way across the country to Saint John, N.B., was to help close the substantial discount between Canadian oil and world prices. Well, crude’s recent drop into the $85-a-barrel range has basically collapsed the once wide-open spread that had existed between West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude with hardly any new lengths of pipe being laid into the ground at all. More Related to this Story Oil’s slide heightens fears of big market correction IEA cuts 2015 oil demand growth outlook, sees supply hitting prices Morning Business Briefing Oil price slump drives TSX to ‘all-out correction’ energy Video: Are low […]

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Keystone Be Darned: Canada Finds an Oil Route Around Obama

By Rebecca Penty, Hugo Miller, Andrew Mayeda and Edward Greenspon So you’re the Canadian oil industry and you do what you think is a great thing by developing a mother lode of heavy crude beneath the forests and muskeg of northern Alberta. The plan is to send it clear to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast via a pipeline called Keystone XL. Just a few years back, America desperately wanted that oil. Then one day the politics get sticky. In Nebraska, farmers don’t want the pipeline running through their fields or over their water source. U.S. environmentalists invoke global warming in protesting the project. President keeps siding with them, delaying and delaying approval. From the Canadian perspective, Keystone has become a tractor mired in an interminably muddy field. In this period of national gloom comes an idea — a crazy-sounding notion, or maybe, actually, an epiphany. How about an […]

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Michigan reviews Enbridge oil pipelines

Enbridge offers assurances to Michigan authorities about integrity of northern oil pipelines. UPI/Brian Kersey LANSING, Mich., Oct. 7 (UPI) — Michigan authorities said Canadian pipeline company Enbridge offered assurances two oil pipelines running under the Mackinac Straits are secured. Line 5 of the Lakehead pipeline system splits into two 20-inch pipelines that carry the heavier grade of crude oil beneath the straits separating the Upper and Lower Michigan Peninsulas. They were installed in 1953. Since an oil spill from Line 6b of the system in 2010, Enbridge has faced scrutiny about the integrity of the pipeline system. That spill was one of the worst onshore incidents of its kind in U.S. history. The Michigan Petroleum Pipeline Task Force said it met with Enbridge officials to discuss Line 5 integrity . A presentation delivered to the task force says pipeline sections are nearly an inch thick and are designed to […]

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New Pipelines Threaten U.S. Gulf Coast Oil Premium

U.S. Gulf crude is set to drop below international prices, after trading at a premium for the longest stretch in a year, as new pipelines bring additional supplies to the region. , and plan to start bringing oil from Canada , North Dakota and West Texas by the end of the year. That’s likely to push Light Louisiana Sweet, the benchmark for low-density, low-sulfur oil on the Gulf Coast , below Dated Brent, according to Turner, Mason & Co. It’s been at a premium since Sept. 22. The U.S. the most oil since 1986 last month as producers use horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to extract crude from underground shale rock. As LLS falls below Brent, shipments to the Gulf Coast, where more than half the U.S. refining capacity is located, become less attractive. Imports from countries other than Canada sank to the lowest level in 23 years in […]

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Bakken oil pipeline, Sandpiper, delayed

Enbridge expects delays on construction of Sandpiper oil pipeline because of regulatory issues in Minnesota. UPI/Hamid Forotan HOUSTON, Oct. 1 (UPI) — The Sandpiper pipeline designed to carry oil from the Bakken reserve area in North Dakota through Minnesota is delayed, Enbridge Energy Partners said. Enbridge Chief Executive Al Manaco said regulators in Minnesota decided to vet the planned 616-mile Sandpiper oil pipeline separately on routing and capacity. As a result, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission the pipeline likely won’t start delivering North Dakota crude until 2017, a year later than expected . Sandpiper would ship up to 225,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil per day through Minnesota. It would then transfer oil to other pipelines for delivery to the U.S. and Canadian refinery markets. Enbridge in June received backing from state legislators in North Dakota to build Sandpiper. Enbridge attorney Christina […]

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Republicans Craft 2015 Plan To Force Obama’s Hand On Keystone

WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Republicans plan to put approval of the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline on a fast track early next year if they win a U.S. Senate majority in November, finally forcing President Barack Obama to make a tough call on the controversial plan. The $10 billion Keystone project to connect Canadian oil sands with U.S. refineries will top the list of Republican energy priorities if they gain control of the Senate after the Nov. 4 midterm elections. It could come as a stand-alone measure or attached to must-pass legislation such as a government spending or transportation bill, according to senators and congressional aides. Republicans, along with some Democrats, have for years pushed for a bill that would allow Congress to approve Keystone, and reduce the role of the administration. However, with Democrats in control, the closest they have gotten in the Senate was a symbolic […]

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