I disagree, the construction of the pipeline is about LOWERING the shipment cost to get it to refiners. Therefore, increasing the price FOB Alberta once the pipeline is done. Keep in mind, Alberta is landlocked. You have to pump the oil to Vancouver to load it on a boat now. Then it has to travel through the Panama canal to get to TX or LA. I do not know what this costs/barrel, but I am sure the pipeline will lower it substantially. They calculated the return on investment based on what the pipeline company gets/barrel to pump the oil. So, as the price of the commodity decreases, the incentive to lower fixed costs goes up.
The Sands folks have been heavily using Canadian railway and US rail companies...to move it around. For most of 2014, I made a fair amount of growth/profit from my investments in Canadian railways. In the last four weeks? I’ve lost most of my profits...less usage and traffic coming from the oil being moved that way.