OUR OPINION: Case for Keystone pipeline keeps growing
May 8, 2012 at 3:35 pm in Grand Forks Herald
Add Warren Buffett to the list of people who say the Keystone XL pipeline should be given the go-ahead. Continue Reading
OUR OPINION: Case for Keystone pipeline keeps growing
6 Comments
Would people still support the pipeline if they knew that the oil companies are exporting refined gasoline in order to drive the prices higher at the pump?
Why are they building a pipeline to the coast; instead of building a refinery near the oil? The refined products are going to be exported–so it makes sense to move them to a coastline first.
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Is the pipeline related in any way to the Bakken or is it just related to the Alberta tar sands?
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I guess I’ll answer my own question.
TransCanada (TRP) seems to be clinging to an idea they once scoffed at – shipping crude out of the Bakken oil field of North Dakota and Eastern Montana.
TC needs Federal State Department approval because the pipeline will cross the international boundary between the U.S. and Canada. However, if the pipeline does not cross the border, the pipeline only needs approval through the States which it traverses – an arguably much easier process. Initially, the Keystone XL pipeline was touted as a pure oil sands crude pipeline that would bring Canadian crude to the Gulf Coast for refining, which would displace imports of crude from hostile nations. Bakken crude shippers, who are constrained with crude takeaway options, pressured TC and the Governor of Montana to allow an “on ramp” at Baker, MT to include Bakken crude batched in the line originally meant to only carry oil sands crude. TC resisted for the longest time about an on ramp but finally conceded to pressure from the industry and the Governor of Montana.
Once an on ramp was on the table, an “open season” had to take place to get shippers to commit to Bakken crude volume on the new pipeline. The open season was successful and somewhere around 60% of the available batch capacity (100,000 barrels per day) was committed, which left the remaining 40% to spot barrel shippers. Keep in mind, the published capacity from Canada to the gulf is 830,000 barrels per day and only 100,000 barrels per day were being allocated to the Bakken shippers. However, TC officials have said that the Bakken on ramp has the capability, as it is engineered, to accept up to 300,000 barrels per day into the Keystone XL.
The question begs, if TC only builds a pipeline from the Bakken to the gulf, what will the economics be? Another interesting point is that some in the industry have also said the 830,000 barrel per day capacity number is around half of the actual built capacity and that pumping stations would be built to effectively double the capacity when demand warranted it without laying another string of pipe.
So, what will TC do with a pipeline that can handle over 1.6M million barrels per day when the Bakken production takeaway needs will never approach it? Most likely TC would justify building the line, without the additional pump stations, and petition to cross the U.S./Canadian border when there is a more favorable political climate. The real question is will building only the Bakken to gulf portion of the pipeline put TC at too much risk?
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Right now Keystone does not have a good clean up, compliance and safety record in other states. They are doing clean up in Michigan of a line just like this one they want to build. Also they are still doing clean up in Wyoming from over a year ago. Until any oil company uses better engineering when building these pipelines there should be a moratorium on any of them.
The Oil Companies need to reinvest some of THEIR profits to better protect the environment for all. They get paid now… and we all will suffer the consequence later. I do believe that moving oil could be safely done through pipelines…but until they upgrade the process “Just Say No.”
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Steve Horn’s blog
The New York Times, in a key September 2011 investigation, revealed that the oil and gas industry flares roughly 30-percent of the gas fracked from the Bakken Shale.
The Times’ Clifford Krauss wrote,
Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.
The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.
Why flare?
“I’ll tell you why people flare: It’s cheap,” said Troy Anderson, lead operator of a North Dakota gas-processing plant owned by Whiting Petroleum in The Times article. “Pipelines are expensive: You have to maintain them. You need permits to build them. They are a pain.”
Though cheap, flaring is certainly not good for public health or the environment. Greener grass? Perhaps not.
New Paradigm: No Extreme Energy
The game of pipeline whack-a-mole will continue unabated unless the root of the problem is addressed: prohibiting what Professor Michael Klare calls “energy extremism,” or the extraction of tougher to reach, dirtier fossil fuels. Basically, we’re grasping for leftovers from the original fossil fuel frenzy, and still ignoring the fact that we’re not only running out, we’re also cooking the atmosphere with global warming pollution in the process.
Alas, until we awaken from this delusion, it’s still damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
Some day maybe we’ll pursue a real clean energy future. Until then, it’s “pipe dreams” for the foreseeable future.
Source: Desmogblog (http://s.tt/198h0)
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Wow… just the Natural Gas that’s Flared everyday if captured, could almost give everyone in ND free power,heating ,cooling.
Oil Companies make huge profits every year even after they pay for all the pollution they create. There should be more rules in place before they are even allowed to start drilling anywhere.
And any all preserved park lands should be off the areas allowed for drilling. If a company owns the mineral rights and it’s part of a nature area…to bad…can’t drill there…they SHOULD have investigated the area before they purchased.
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