Approves Asia Supply Route, Ignores US Route
H/T Eric Worrall and Breitbart – Obama’s inability to make a decision on Keystone has finally yielded a result – Canada has made the decision for him.
Breitbart reports Canada has just approved the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project – a major pipeline to ship Canadian oil to Asia.
The Canadian oil will still be burnt – in Asia, instead of America.
All the jobs and energy security which Canadian oil could have delivered to America, will instead be delivered to Asia.
Rather than purchasing crude from a friendly and allied neighbor, the United States will most likely need to continue its reliance upon hostile sources like Venezuela. Energy analysts had hoped that construction of Keystone could have replaced almost half of the current U.S. daily crude purchases from that volatile, anti-American dictatorship, depriving Venezuela of the resources it relies upon to stay in power and fund its Cuban allies.
You can’t say Canada didn’t give America a chance – they waited years for the American administration to come to their senses. But in the end, they couldn’t wait any longer, and have put the interests of Canadians first.
Below is a helpful timeline of Keystone events, courtesy of Al Jazeera.
Anthony, I’m pretty sure that the bulk of that oil was already earmarked for China.
“After what happened in Quebec, how is this safer than a brand new, state of the art pipeline built to the highest standards in history?”
But that’s what the ‘Greens’ want. A few oil train crashes burning down towns, and they’ll be shouting in the media about how dangerous oil trains are and how they must be banned.
The left’s standard policy for the last century has been to create problems and then exploit them to push their true agenda. This is no different. The last thing they want is safe oil transport.
This is what you get when your government is hostage to special interest groups. In this case, radical, anti-science global warming advocates. They are anti-science because they will not listen to scientific arguments against their dogma. They are anti-science because they suppress any scientific research that promises to expose their errors. They are anti-science because they have seized control of scientific societies and forced them to regurgitate their dogma as science against the wishes of the membership. They are anti-science because they have taken control of scientific publishing and thereby have stopped papers they consider hostile to their cause from being published. And they are totally opposed to our national interest in energy security by forcing Obama to stop the Keystone pipeline from being built. I predict they will also attempt to stop the other Canadian pipeline the same way. That would be interference in the internal affairs of a friendly nation and should be stopped by U.S. authorities before international incidents start. Private interest groups have no place in international affairs. Greenpeace was doing similar interference in India and got stopped by Indian authorities. We and the Canadians should also stop any further interference by warmist groups in our joint interest in energy security. The insanity of these groups derives from their religious belief that burning fossil fuels will cause the world to overheat, oceans to boil, and life to perish, as the fake “scientist” Hansen who lied about discovering the greenhouse effect in 1988 has put it.
Boydo3 N. Albany says: June 28, 2014 at 11:22 pm
The oil was never going to be used here anyway. We are already sending away our own fracking juice. Fine with me. Petrol prices remain the domain of the oil mafia.
Wake up. Oil exports from the US are banned and have been so for 40 years. Two (2) permits were allowed a week ago.
The Canadian oil was coming to us at half the price. The Middle East terrorist cartels and OPEC does not rule all the oil prices.
It’s just sicking, that’s all I can say.
This administration just let a perfectly good opportunity go to waste just to play to it’s liberal base while sticking it’s finger in the eye of America’s public and best interest. What was gain from it? absolutely nothing, The oil will be burnt anyways.
I would like to add 2 points to this discussion.
Firstly, Harper warned a long time ago that if America didn’t want our product, we would sell it elsewhere. Anyone paying attention is aware of this.
Secondly, there are oil sands in Saskatchewan that rival or are greater than the Alberta deposit. That, coupled with the Bakken deposit, there is a lot of oil here.
Obama can go ahead and spend vast amounts of money stopping ISIS to preserve the flow of blood oil, or he can get cheaper, safer, non-conflict oil from Canada. Seems like a no brainer.
I won’t say what I think of the current US administration. But it is quaint that the mentally handicapped can reach such lofty positions of power in America.
This was a filibuster, exactly what the Obama administration was hoping for.
David Ball, why would Obama spend money trying to stop ISIS when he had them trained?
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/06/20/the-u-s-trained-terrorist-group-isis-in-2012/
Sorry to the American people, but I think if we are to sell our oil to you now, it should be at world prices. The bargain oil has left the station. It pains me to say that.
I used to look up to you, America, until you put your “big brother” in charge.
Gregory says:
June 29, 2014 at 12:17 pm
History repeats itself once again. Sad that we don’t learn from previous mistakes.
(Im)plausible deniablility.
It was Canada’s fault!
========================================================================
Hopefully Obummer’s enablers will be ejected next election.
(I’ve nothing against Canada. I kinda like gravy with my fries. Tastes like mashed potatoes and gravy.)
Robert of Ottawa says:
June 29, 2014 at 7:29 am
” Again, it’s “oil sands”. Nature’s largest oil spill on the planet that Canadians are cleaning up.”
..
..
Technically the Orinoco Belt deposit is larger than the Athabasca oil sands.
Gregory says:
June 29, 2014 at 12:17 pm
VT is an anti-Israel site.
The US didn’t train ISIS. We defeated its antecedent al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia & killed its leader. We did however release its current leader & other officers from captivity in 2009. And our client Saudi Arabia is backing them as a foil against Iranian influence, which support may come back to bite them.
David Davidovics says:
June 28, 2014 at 10:31 pm
“It will be an uphill battle to get that pipeline through BC so I have my doubts that this will happen anytime soon.”
lf Harper remains in power to make the decision, it will be done, although I agree its a battle. He has chopped the environmental assessment timelines in half and passed legislation that fast tracks them. The Liberals and NDP (both social-ists, now) would cancel it in a heartbeat because this would conform to UN A21 and eurosocial-ist ‘principles’. China, the real socia-list in the room, will brush the gnats out of the way with their trading power: no oil? then stuff your potash and iron ore.
“The Canadian oil will still be burnt – in Asia, instead of America.”
Yes, exactly as Obama wants. Truthfully, he cares nothing carbon dioxide “pollution”. The whole global warming issue is his means of screwing up energy delivery to people of this country. Based on his actions, he cares nothing for this country or its people.
He promised to fundamentally change America, and that is the only promise he is fulfilling. By skyrocketing debt, alienating friendly nations, emboldening unfriendly nations, allowing Iran to become nuclear, opening borders, making a mess of health care insurance, having his guard dogs at the EPA make rules that will eventually cause a radical increase energy prices, banning drilling offshore and in some two million western acres, etc, etc, etc, this country will be not be the America in which we grew up.
Richard says:
June 29, 2014 at 12:46 pm
Impoverishing America & bringing it down several notches so that it’s a pale imitation of the ill begotten spawn of France, Sweden, Cuba & Venezuela, creating whole new victim classes dependent upon government while trading in its current electorate for a new one does indeed appear to be the administration’s goal.
@David Ball says
“Secondly, there are oil sands in Saskatchewan that rival or are greater than the Alberta deposit. That, coupled with the Bakken deposit, there is a lot of oil here. ”
Please quantify and substantiate the above
If you listen to the Hofmeister link I posted above at about 16 min, he says
“lots and lots is a political science term. You may know them differently as technologists” :: ))
Best Regards
brent
The solution for Keystone XL is easy. Built the pipeline on both sides of the border to within about 60 feet. Then unload the pipeline onto a railcar straddling the border which sits on a single section of rail. Reload the pipeline on the southern end and continue the journey to the GOM. replace the section of rail once the president has left office.
Also, I think from some of the comments that people are mixing up Enbridge’s planned “Northern Gateway” project with Kinder Morgan’s “Trans-Mountain” expansion.
This is one of the easiest predictions I have ever made. You don’t need to be an Einstein to know what was going to happen. Even without Asia there are many, many countries who want and need oil.
This does not mean they’ve pulled the plug on Keystone XL. Also, this is just one step in a long process. Now it is the turn of people in Canada, e.g. some of the “native” “nations” to object. The people in the town planned as the port are already objecting. Many more years to go. Meanwhile, if Keystone gets approved in another 4-5 years, it may be the preferable option once again.
Keystone’s biggest problem right now appears to be Nebraska, which has to provide a route for the pipeline but has no oilfields of its own along that route. Nebraska gets the risk of spills but gets nothing in return. Far better to build along the route of existing pipelines from Montana to Colorado and expand those popelines. A pipeline there not only accesses the Bakken Field but the Niobrara and Wattenberg oilfields (also being developed via frakking) and then into the Texas popeline network via the Andarko and Permian Basins. It looks to me like Trans-Canada had a tin ear when it came to US politics. They looked at the US map and all they saw was a belt of Red or near-Red states across the Great Plains and Colorado and Montana tending “purple”. And they didn’t want to work with any other pipeline company. Now they are having to work with another pipeline company to get some oil across Illinois and Missouri to Cushing OK and the Colorado plains are tending so “red” that their elected officials explored leaving Coloardo and creating their own state. The most the Greens can muster in Colorado is support for letting communities like Longmont and Ft. Collins say no to frakking under their cities. Colorado is NOT saying no to the Wattenberg Field.
And there is another alternative to Northern Gateway if the First Nations keep blocking it. A railway has been proposed from Alberta to Alaska. If British Columbia proves totally uncooperative, it (or a pipeline or both) can be built north from Hay River to Norman Wells thence over the Canol Route into the Yukon before crossing the border either past Dawson or backtracking a bit to the Tanana Valley. Thence to the Alaska Pipeline and the underutilized Port of Valdez to Asia. The Yukon and Northwest Territory First Nations are far fewer and far less “Green” than British Columbia First Nations.
And then there are even more alternatives: A trans-Canada Pipeline to Nova Scotia. A pipeline to Churchill, Manitoba along the railroad that is already starting to ship crude (only open 5 months of the year, so far, but extendable with better icebreakers) and simply building refineries in Alberta and shipping refined products by truck and rail, from gasoline to plastics resins. Build the same infrastructure in Alberta that we see in Texas and Louisiana, which will mean more jobs for Canadians. The US CANNOT say no to refined products and petrochemicals without completely agrogating NAFTA. One way or another, that oil will get used.
As has been noted before MORE co2 will now be released due to transportation issues etc. Obama now needs to ask himself this: How has my failure to decide helped reduce co2 emissions?
Warmists: will you now cheer? We told you that fighting the pipeline cannot possibly help your carbonphobia cause. Can you see the point now?
Northern Gateway being build has nothing to do with Keystone. When Obama approves Keystone after the November election (why hurt democrats with this issue when he can wait), you will see the two project run together, plus another pipeline going East (reversing an existing pipeline). Canada will need all these routes to ship its oil, and there will be room for all of them. So lets not panic, odds are Northern Gateway would have happened even with Keystone.
Well, Northern Gateway has not been fully approved – only one substantial approval in the total picture. The BC government has to agree that its five conditions are being satisfied, and there are questions of land jurisdictions involving tribal groups (that I’m not familiar with). Progress with more rocky road ahead.
BTW, sands oil is now flowing in the Keystone pipeline to the US Gulf Coast, as extension of the existing Keystone pipeline south of Cushing OK was completed. XL is to be a substantial shortcut and probably a bigger pipe.
Key people in the Canadian oil transportation industry have pointed out that they’ll try whatever they can to move oil that their customers the oil producers want moved – in including expanding use of railway cars.