08.01.13

Canadian Oil To Go East and West: U.S. Energy Interests Could Go South

A Million Barrels-a-Day of Canadian Oil Headed Overseas, Keystone XL Languishes

WASHINGTON – Senator John Hoeven today said that TransCanada’s plan to build a new pipeline designed to carry oil from Alberta, Canada to the country’s east coast drives home the irrationality of delaying or denying approval for the Keystone XL pipeline project.

“As we’ve said all along, the Canadian oil sands will be developed with our without U.S. participation,” Hoeven said. “The question is, will President Obama allow that oil to go east and west to Asia, with absolutely no benefit to the American people, or will he approve the permit for the Keystone XL project, spurring jobs, economic growth and energy security for the United States and our people?”

The proposed $12 billion Energy East Pipeline will be more than 2,800 miles long and carry more than a million barrels-a-day of oil to St. John, New Brunswick on Canada’s east coast by 2018. From there TransCanada will be poised to ship the oil to Asia, where the demand is growing. New Brunswick is a thousand miles closer to India than Canada’s west coast, meaning oil will likely ship from the country’s west coast to China and from its east coast to India.

Hoeven said Canadian companies are planning to build or expand additional east-west pipelines that will carry another million barrels-of-oil per day to Canadian ports for potential shipment overseas on tankers. The senator cited other pipelines – some proposed and others already under construction – that will carry oil sands production to the country’s west coasts:

  • The Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion ( 590,000 bpd west)
  • Enbridge’s Northern Gateway (525,000 bpd west)

“If the Keystone XL pipeline is not approved, Canadian oil will be shipped across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on enormous tankers to Asia, where it will be refined at facilities with far less stringent standards than any in the United States,” Hoeven said. “We will effectively create more emissions and lose an opportunity to create jobs and boost our economy.

“We have a very clear choice. We can access oil from our closest friend and ally, Canada, or we can allow that oil to be sent to China and India, and continue to buy oil from the Mideast and hostile nations like Venezuela. That is not what the American people want, and 82 percent of them made it clear in a recent poll. The president needs to approve the Keystone XL pipeline project without further delay.”