Free Republic

Seems Canada is tired of waiting – and waiting – for a decision on the Keystone pipeline and has come up with an alternate plan for moving the oil to market. As Bloomberg reports: It would be Keystone on steroids, more than twice as long and carrying a third more crude. Its end point, a refinery in the blue-collar city of Saint John, New Brunswick, operated by a reclusive Canadian billionaire family, would give Canada’s oil-sands crude supertanker access to the same Louisiana and Texas refineries Keystone was meant to supply. And: … if you’re a fed-up Canadian, like Prime...

The federal government recently began its seventh year of considering whether to approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Nearly all that time has passed under the administration of President Obama, who seems content never to decide the pipeline's fate. That way, it wouldn't be built, which would please the president's supporters on the liberal environmental fringe, but would never be explicitly rejected, which could offend everybody else. It's striking to see an administration stonewalling an issue with so much popular support on the other side. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in March found that 65 percent favor building the...

CIUDAD MIER, Mexico (AP) — Mexico adjusted 75 years of crony-corruption to reform its state-owned oil industry. As it prepares to develop rich Gulf Coast shale fields just south of Brownsville, and attract foreign investors. Brutal "drug" cartels rule Tamaulipas and are stealing billions of dollars' worth of oil from pipelines. Figures released by Petroleos Mexicanos last week show the gangs are have drilled 2,481 taps into the pipelines. Pemex estimates it's lost some 7.5 million barrels worth $1.15 billion. Pemex director Emilio Lozoya (a friend of Eric), called the trend "worrisome."

The proposed 1,200-mile Keystone XL pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta, Canada to Steele City, Nebraska may be the second most famous crude oil pipeline in American history after the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline. One has yet to be built while the other has been operating since 1977, but the two pipelines share a common history marked by environmental controversy in its approval process. The TAPS line, as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline became known as, was proposed in 1969 to move the recently discovered Alaskan North Slope oil to the Lower 48 market via tanker from the Port of Valdez. The Prudhoe Bay oil...

The European Union is quietly increasing the urgency of a plan to import natural gas from Iran, as relations with Tehran thaw while those with top gas supplier Russia grow chillier. Two “ifs” - the removal of sanctions on Iran and the addition of some pipeline infrastructure - are not preventing EU planners preparing, a European Commission source involved in developing EU energy strategy told Reuters. “Iran is far towards the top of our priorities for mid-term measures that will help reduce our reliance on Russian gas supplies,” the source said. “Iran’s gas could come to Europe quite easily and...

The furious pace of energy exploration in North Dakota is creating a crisis for farmers whose grain shipments have been held up by a vast new movement of oil by rail, leading to millions of dollars in agricultural losses and slower production for breakfast cereal giants like General Mills. [] reports the railroads filed with the federal government show that for the week that ended Aug. 22, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway — North Dakota’s largest railroad, owned by the billionaire Warren E. Buffett — had a backlog of 1,336 rail cars waiting to ship grain and other products....

Increasing production of crude oil in the Permian Basin in western Texas, and parts of New Mexico, has outpaced pipeline infrastructure to move the crude to refineries, causing prices for crude in the Permian Basin (at Midland, Texas) to fall below similar crudes priced at Cushing, Oklahoma. While the price difference between Midland and Cushing has been increasing for almost a year, recent refinery outages in the region caused it to widen substantially. Several infrastructure projects that will allow more crude to flow from the Permian to the U.S. Gulf Coast are expected to come online soon, which should cause...

In a special meeting Saturday, the town of Hollis voted to oppose the construction of a natural gas pipeline that would run under the town. Four-hundred and twenty people attended a special town meeting Saturday morning in the Hollis-Brookline High School gym. Townspeople debated the controversial pipeline, which would run through the middle of Hollis from the southwest to the northeast. Tennessee Gas Pipeline argues that the pipeline is necessary to meet increasing energy demands in the northeast. The natural gas company submitted a proposal to build the pipeline in 2018, which the New Hampshire Energy Facility Site Evaluation committee...

Marking the sixth anniversary of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline's permit application, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) teased voters with a preview of what a GOP-controlled Senate would do. "If American people give us the opportunity to be in a majority next year, I'll be setting the agenda," McConnell said. "It's easier to score if you're on offense, and the majority leader is offensive coordinator." He added: "If we have a new majority next year, and a new majority leader, the Keystone pipeline will be voted on on the floor of the Senate, something the current majority has been avoiding...

WASHINGTON– TransCanada Corp.’s chief executive said the cost to build the Keystone XL pipeline, currently estimated at $5.4 billion, is expected to double by the time the U.S. government completes its review of the largest part of the project. Russ Girling, chief executive of the Calgary, Alberta,-based company, in an interview this week said he expects the project’s cost could increase to a “number that gets you into the high single digits to a 10 number.” He was hesitant to say the project’s cost could double. “I was actually trying to avoid saying those words,” Mr. Girling said. “Obviously, the...

Spectra Energy Corp. announced a $3 billion expansion to its New England pipeline network which it says will help meet growing demand for natural gas in the region. The undertaking will allow Houston-based Spectra and its partners to deliver 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the area, the company said. The project will serve both gas-fired power plants as well as customers who use natural gas for heating. “This is another step in our commitment to improving power system reliability, reducing electric costs to make the region more economically competitive, and protecting New England’s quality of...

It’s harvest time! But oil shipments out of the Bakken are causing dangerous and costly rail delays for farmers. The oil boom in the Northern Plains is a boon to the U.S. economy, creating thousands of jobs and increasing our supply of American energy. With nearly 3 million Americans out of work, the Bakken is like a pool of cool water in an arid desert. However, our railroads do not have the capacity to transport unprecedented levels of crude oil as well as the fall harvest. Farmers are understandably frustrated with the railroad companies, yet the railroad companies say they...

CUSHING, Okla.— New pipeline projects are expanding the size of an Oklahoma crude oil hub that is already one of the most important oil storage facilities in the world. One new pipeline is in operation at the hub in Cushing, another is almost complete and a new project was announced earlier this month when Tulsa-based NGL Energy Partners revealed plans for the Grand Mesa Pipeline, a joint venture with Rimrock Midstream LLC, the Tulsa World reported Saturday. Grand Mesa, which will be open to oil producer commitments starting next week, will be a 550-mile system from Colorado to Cushing. Once...

A fall in gas flows from Russia to two Eastern European countries this week has sent a chill through the region as it prepares for possible energy shortages this winter. Slovakia's gas distributor SPP said Thursday its daily gas intake from Russia fell 10% below contracted levels starting late Wednesday. Polish gas company PGNiG said its gas flows from Russia had fallen 45% below its contracted daily volumes by Thursday.

He went. He saw. He issued another news release. Making good on his vow to “see the situation first hand,” Texas Railroad Commissioner David Porter returned Thursday from a visit to oil installations with a grim safety assessment. But the industry, he stressed, was not to blame. “South Texas pipelines are vulnerable,” announced Porter, whose agency regulates the state’s petroleum industry, “because the federal government has abdicated its most basic function to protect our borders.” Repeating an assertion that he made in an open letter last month to the federal Customs and Border Patrol agency, Porter said “his concerns stems...

In the chambers of the Nebraska Supreme Court in Omaha, a hearing was held Friday about the decision by Lancaster County District Judge Stephanie F. Stacy claiming that the law under which the state’s governor had approved the route of the Keystone XL pipeline was unconstitutional. The judge, in a case brought by three landowners, decided that LB1161, the law passed by the state’s legislature at the end of its session in 2011 that shifted the approval of the pipeline route from the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) to the governor, was unconstitutional, and as such the judge instituted a...

A Tulsa, Okla.,-based plumbers and pipe welders union is clearly flush with cash, as a dozen of their top officials made more than $200,000 last year, federal records show. Plumbers AFL-CIO Local Union 798 paid business manager Daniel Hendrix $280,000 and financial secretary/treasurer Wade Pilgreen $272,000 in fiscal 2013, according to disclosures the union filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. ... Hendrix said his pipe fitters make about $50 an hour and work at least a 60-hour a week plus expenses, and the union staff is compensated at a similar rate for their roughly 80-hour work weeks. A person...

The growing glut of U.S. natural gas is helping to power a manufacturing boom in Mexico. Natural-gas exports across the southern border have risen 11% so far this year, to two billion cubic feet a day, according to Bentek Energy, an analytics company based in Denver. And that flow of gas could double in the next few years, analysts say. Companies have announced plans for at least seven new pipelines to take gas across the border from Texas and Arizona, including one expected to start transporting fuel at the end of the month. The increasing flow of gas is easing...

(Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin on Monday oversaw the start of construction on a giant pipeline that is due to ship $400 billion (240.78 billion pounds) worth of Russian gas to China in the three decades after flows begin in 2019.The 4,000 km (2,500 mile) "Power of Siberia" pipeline, being built by state-controlled Gazprom (GAZP.MM), forms a key part of the Kremlin's energy strategy, symbolising Russia's attempts to wean itself off dependence on European markets that account for most of its exports."Just now, we along with our Chinese friends are starting the biggest construction project in the world," Putin told...

State regulators have cleared Vermont Gas Systems to install pipeline near power lines owned by the Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO). The company was temporarily forbidden to do work near the power lines over concerns that the chemical treatment used on utility poles would be disturbed by the work. ... Vermont Gas submitted the plan the day the Public Service Board ordered it, and after receiving comments on the plan, the board approved it on August 26. Work on the controversial pipeline is ongoing. Vermont Gas has filed for permission to go ahead with the next phase of the project,...