No, the Kochs won't make $100 billion from the Keystone XL pipeline

Tampa Bay Times PolitiFact.com PunditFact ^ | November 19, 2014 | Katie Sanders

[EveningStar]

Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline are stoking fear about the project by connecting it to two of the biggest bogeymen in politics: Charles and David Koch.

The claim goes that the Koch brothers stand to make $100 billion if the pipeline gets built. The figure, which would effectively double the Kochs’ net worth, has bounced around liberal news organizations and was repeated this month by progressive radio talk show and TV host Thom Hartmann on his RT show.

Take it with a block of salt, a PunditFact analysis finds.

[thackney]

I think a good comparison would be the Alaska Pipeline.

The Keystone XL is a 1,179-mile pipeline, a thousand miles or so in the US.

For comparison the 800 mile Alaskan Pipeline employs 800 direct employees and 1,000 contractors. This does NOT include any employees associated with the production and associated facilities on the North Slope, just the main pipeline.

http://www.alyeska-pipe.com/assets/uploads/pagestructure/NewsCenter_MediaResources_FactSheets_Entries/635078372894251917_2013AlyeskaTAPSFactBook.pdf
See page 7

[mbarker12474]

> Koch brothers will/won’t make a lot a money....

So what if they do?

[Ann Archy]

But Warren Buffet makes MILLIONS by NOT having the XL Keystone!!! Warren Buffet is BAD NEWS......an elitist that poses as Folksy.....BAD NEWS.

[pepsionice]

For the oil sands deal to be financially effective, you need oil to be around $100 a barrel. Less than that....it just doesn’t make profit-sense. The crowd got smart, delaying this....pushing them to use US railways to deliver it. Even I bought US rail stock in the last year and made a handsome return. Now with oil drifting down to $70 a barrel....the oil sands crowd will just shut down in the spring of 2015, and no one will have interest in building the stupid pipeline. That’s the bold side of this whole gimmick....they all milked this for it’s value...even the President. And now? Even after they pass this...no one has interest to start the pipeline until the barrel price recovers to $100 a barrel....which might be five years away.