Anti energy left fails to stop Canadian oil from reaching Texas on Keystone XL

Fuel Fix:

The Keystone XL southern leg has delivered its first barrels of Canadian oil to the Texas coast, even though the project still lacks its planned northern leg into Canada, TransCanada CEO Russell Girling said in an interview Wednesday.

The crude moved through TransCanada’s existing pipelines, including the original Keystone pipeline that began operation in 2010.

The oil then made its way from Cushing, Okla., to Nederland, Texas, on the recently completed $2.3 billion southern portion of Keystone XL, also called the Gulf Coast Project, he said. It arrived at the end of the line last week. TransCanada began moving oil into the pipeline on Jan. 2 and made its first deliveries to refiners on Jan. 22.

The movement of Canadian crude illustrates the capabilities of TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline system, even without the controversial northern leg that would extend from Hardesty, Alberta, and traverse the Bakken Shale region of North Dakota and Montana before connecting with other lines, Girling said.

“We just moved the first batch of Canadian oil right through the whole system from Canada right through the Gulf Coast,” Girling said. “So (refiners) know they can do that. And they know they can do that on an ongoing basis and a reliable basis, so their buying patterns will switch to being more reliant on North American supply.”
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The architects of an artificial scarcity energy policy may have slowed access to Canadian oil, but they have not been able to block despite a Luddite type fight against a major new pipeline.  The oil is also getting to California refineries on rail cars.  The anti energy left is driving up the cost of transporting oil, but they are not stopping it.  If these people were smart about achieving their objectives they would put more effort into creating viable alternatives rather than trying to drive up the cost of oil and pushing inefficient wind and solar projects.