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Supporters of the Keystone XL pipeline have found a new talking point: Iraq Violence exploding in one of the world's largest oil-producing nations is ricocheting in the debate over U.S. energy policy. Backers of the pipeline, which would run from Alberta, Canada, to Texas, are pointing to the crisis in Iraq as a rationale for pushing the project forward. Often billed as a possible component for supplying the U.S.'s voracious energy markets with crude oil, TransCanada's long-delayed $5.3 billion pipeline has been mired in delays for six years. On Wednesday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee voted 12-10 to...

The U.S. Senate Energy Committee advanced a bill on Wednesday that would force congressional approval of TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline project, but the measure seems unlikely to be taken up by the full Senate. The bill, the latest effort by lawmakers to breathe life into the long-delayed pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast, will languish without a commitment from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring it to a vote. The measure, from Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Republican Senators John Hoeven of North Dakota and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, would take a decision...

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted Wednesday to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, delivering a rebuke to President Obama. All Republicans on the panel voted to clear the pipeline, joined by Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (La.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), two Democrats in energy-heavy states, in a 12-10 vote. Proponents of the pipeline expressed frustration with Obama’s refusal to take action for more than five years on the final leg of Keystone, which is planned to run from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries on the United States Gulf Coast. “I really wish we weren’t sitting here years after...

The Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) announced on Monday that it expects service to commence as soon as today for the first 0.25 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of capacity on its 0.60 Bcf/d Seneca Lateral pipeline in southeast Ohio. The 14.3-mile lateral will flow gas north from the MarkWest Seneca natural gas processing plant to the REX mainline, where a newly built compressor station will allow this gas to be delivered to points west in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. No new pipelines will be added to the mainline; the project will allow bidirectional flows—both east and west—to occur on...

Canada’s government on Tuesday approved a proposed pipeline to the Pacific Coast that would allow oil to be shipped to Asia, a major step in the country’s efforts to diversify its oil industry. The approval Tuesday was expected. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been a staunch supporter of Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline after the U.S. delayed a decision on TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline that would take oil from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Enbridge’s pipeline would transport 525,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta’s oil sands to the Pacific to deliver oil to Asia, mainly energy-hungry...

An explosion has struck a pipeline in the eastern Ukrainian Poltava region. Witnesses say flames from the blast are up to 200 meter high, RIA Novosti reports. The “Brotherhood” natural gas pipeline (Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod) is about one kilometer away from the nearest settlement. No injuries have been reported from the blast. Fire fighting crews have been deployed to the scene. “The explosion occurred at about 14:45 local time in a field. Due to the flame and the high temperatures, it is impossible to get closer to the epicenter,” the local police press-service said in a statement. Pipeline faucets are being tuned...

The explosion occurred on the pipeline "Urengoy-Uzhgorod-Pomary" Lokhvytsky in Poltava region. On it informs "Іnterfaks-Ukraine", referring to the press service of the Interior Ministry in the Poltava region, transmits UE. Read also "Tsenzor.NET": GTS and underground gas storage facilities will remain the property of the state, - "Naftogaz" "The report of the explosion came about 14:20. Fortunately, there were no injuries, fire works are still going on," - said the press service. According to police, the explosion occurred on a section of pipeline located in the field, the distance to the nearest settlement - about 1 km. "According to witnesses,...

A Canadian TV anchor called out Hillary Clinton for refusing to answer his question about the Keystone pipeline during an interview. “Keystone, yes or no?” the anchor asked Clinton. “Well I can’t say that, because I was there,” Clinton began to reply. “I don’t understand that,” the anchor interjected, “you can talk about so many other things, why can’t you talk about that?” Clinton continued to evade the question, saying, “Because that was a decision that rests with the secretary of state, and my successor is going to have to make that decision one way or the other and so...

The pipeline is critical to Canada, which needs infrastructure in place to export its growing oil sands production. Alberta has the world’s third largest oil reserves, with 170 billion barrels of proven reserves. “I did not see it nor should it be a proxy for the relationship. It is, after all, one pipeline. We already have a lot of pipelines that cross our border,” Clinton said

Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine on Monday, a move that will inflict immediate pain on its turbulent neighbor and could eventually affect other gas-dependent European nations. The cutoff intensifies pressure on Ukraine, which is contending with an increasingly violent pro-Russian insurgency in its east and with economic challenges that were crippling even before the upheaval sparked by the ouster of Kremlin-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych in February. And if the gas flow is halted for a long time, winter stockpiles across Europe could be depleted, causing problems across the continent, particularly in eastern European countries that depend solely on...

After weeks of worthless foreplay whose outcome was known from the beginning despite just as worthless EU middleman Oettinger assuring everyone a deal was imminent any second now, overnight we got the long-anticipated mutual defection outcome and - as we warned - negotiations between Gazprom and Ukraine/EU fell apart with the Russian energy giant halting supplies to Ukraine unless Kiev prepays any and all gas deliveries from now on. Gazprom said it hadn't received payment for a debt it put at $4.458 billion by the Monday deadline it had set. "Ukraine will receive gas only in the amounts it has...

Russian firm Gazprom is stopping gas supplies to Ukraine after talks on a new price broke down in the small hours of Monday (16 June). It said in a statement published at 10 am Moscow time—its deadline for Ukraine to pay almost $2 billion of old debt—that it is switching to “prepayment for gas supplies … Starting today, the Ukrainian company will only get the Russian gas it has paid for”. It added that Ukraine has not made prepayments for June. The situation does not mean immediate shortages for Ukraine or for EU countries which get Russian gas via Ukraine,...

Energy: As a big Dem donor talks of pipeline terrorism, new federal reports warn that killing Keystone XL will overburden rail transport of oil and result in more frequent and deadlier environmental disasters. Environmentalists who claim that the Keystone pipeline from Canada represents an unprecedented environmental threat ignore that the pipeline would pose no greater danger than the more than 50,000 existing miles of safely operating pipeline already crisscrossing the U.S. They also ignore the very real and growing environmental danger in the only viable alternate for transporting oil — by rail. Keystone would not only carry oil from Canada...

Hedge fund billionaire and rapturous eco-crusader Tom Steyer has fronted a lot of ridiculous attempts to not only thwart the construction of the already-existing Keystone pipeline’s northern extension, which would merely give Canada’s oil sands an efficient connection to our refineries in the Gulf, but to smear everything about the fossil fuel industry, the technology it employs, and the global free market in which it operates. The absurdly worded poll that his NextGen Climate Action group commissioned earlier this year, claiming that the “majority of U.S. voters want to know where the crude oil transported through the Keystone XL...

Full Title: The Keystone Pipeline Is Just One Of Canada's Oil Export Options, And Maybe Not Even The Most Important As the U.S. debates whether to relax a decades-old ban on oil exports and a political battle in the U.S. delays and threatens to reject Canada’s plans to ship oil south through the Keystone XL pipeline, Canada is looking to export significant amounts of oil overseas. The oil shale boom in the U.S. has shrunk American demand for oil imports as Canada’s rich oil sands continue producing oil, leaving the country with too much oil and not enough buyers. About...

Bulgaria's prime minister has ordered a halt to construction work on the Gazprom-led South Stream pipeline project. Plamen Oresharski said after meeting US Senators John McCain, Christopher Murphy and Ron Johnson that he has ordered all work on the disputed project to continue only after consultations with Brussels. Last week, the European Commission opened an infringement procedure against the Balkan country and asked construction work to be stopped, arguing that Bulgaria had not respected EU internal market rules covering the award of public contracts. The stand-off over Ukraine has forced the 28-nation EU into a sudden rethink of its energy...

Last week as part of a high-profile visit to Shanghai, China and before the start of the equally high-profile St. Petersburg Economic Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping oversaw the agreement of a 30-year deal for natural gas supply from Russia to China. The announcement of an agreement to the terms of this deal, which has reportedly been negotiated off and on for nearly a decade, set off shock-waves within the global natural gas market and sparked U.S. politicians' calls for speedier approval of the backlog of liquefied natural gas (LNG)export terminal projects. These faster approvals...

This doesn’t directly have anything to do with the Keystone XL pipeline per se, but it does once again highlight just how dumb that entirely trumped-up and drawn-out debate really is. America already has a network of more than two million miles worth of pipeline sprawling across the United States, but because of the recent oil-and-gas production boom brought on by technological innovations in fracking, we still need millions more as well as a whole slew of existing infrastructure updates. Without more pipelines, we’ll be working underneath entirely self-imposed restrictions on our production capacity — a phenomenon that’s already...

We now know how much Sen. Mark Udall was willing to sell Colorado out for- $15 million (give or take). The eco-extremist Tom Steyer is hoping to have a $100 million dollars to spend in just seven races this election cycle. That means if Steyer distributes his hoped for funds evenly, it only took less than $15 million dollars for Udall to choose a San Francisco eco-extremist’s wishes over what is best for Colorado ... Opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline is nothing but an extremist issue pushed by those on the margins of the Democratic Party. The chance to...

AP Content - Excerpt only BISMARCK, N.D. — The godfather of North Dakota’s present oil bonanza predicted the state’s crude production will double to 2 million barrels daily by decade’s end, but warned industry officials Thursday that future safety missteps would threaten that.