Why the Keystone XL Pipeline May Not Get Built After All
Canada’s oil industry is facing a dilemma – three major proposed pipelines but perhaps only room enough for two of them.
In late 2015, the issue looked like it was going nowhere. The Obama administration had just killed off the Keystone XL project, rejecting it on climate grounds. Alternative routes also struggled for acceptance. Moreover, falling oil prices forced oil companies to cancel or delay several dozen oil sands projects.
But a little more than a year later and Alberta finds itself in a different situation: three viable pipelines from three different companies, all of which are determined to move forward in a market that might only need two of them.
The election of President Donald Trump brought the project, left for dead by President Obama, back to life. TransCanada hopes to move forward on the project.
But according to Enbridge, there may not be a market for all three pipelines. "If you look at the supply profile and you look at our expansion replacement capacity for Line 3 and one other pipeline, that should suffice based on the current supply outlook, out to at least mid-next decade," Enbridge’s CEO Al Monaco said on a fourth quarter earnings call. Naturally, Monaco wants his company’s Line 3 to be one of the two pipelines to move forward.
The obvious odd man out would be Keystone XL despite the support from the Trump administration.
Keystone XL Does Not Make Sense Anymore | OilPrice.com