Canadian Pipeline Could Replace Keystone XL With the Obama administration still not approving construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, citing environmental concerns, Canada is seriously considering building a pipeline to deliver its oil to a port on its own east coast.
The 1,200-mile Keystone XL would transport crude from Alberta's oil sands to refineries in Texas and Louisiana.
Instead, the proposed $11 billion Energy East Project would send 1.1 million barrels of oil per day 2,900 miles east to Saint John, New Brunswick, which has supertanker access.
"Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the country's largest energy concern, TransCanada Corporation, seem ready to develop the Energy East Project as an alternative" to Keystone, the International Business Times reported.
The project would convert an underutilized 1950s-era natural gas pipeline to carry oil, and add extensions to each end: one to a terminal south of Alberta's oil sands, and the other from Montreal, Quebec, to a refinery in Saint John. From there it could be shipped globally, in particular to Europe and India.
The United States currently consumes most of Canada's oil exports but at a discount of up to $43 a barrel, which costs Canada an estimated $20 billion a year, according to Bloomberg News.
The project could be up and running by 2018, although it likely will face opposition from politicians in Quebec since the pipeline would cross the St. Lawrence River, a major source of drinking water for the local population.
Bloomberg observed: "Still, if this end run around the Keystone holdup comes to fruition, it would give a lift to Canadian oil and government interests who feel they're being played by Obama as he sweeps aside a long understood 'special relationship' between the world's two biggest trading partners to score political points with environmental supporters at home."