It was the fall of 2008, and a group of environmental activists spent part of a conference there brainstorming tactics for slowing down the growth of the oilsands — and they identified pipelines as the most vulnerable target.
One in particular fit the bill: Keystone XL — a 1,897-kilometre pipeline to be built by TC Energy that would carry up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Hardisty, Alta., to Nebraska, where it would link up with the company's existing pipeline network.
Their fateful decision at that meeting to throw money and organizational effort into attacking the proposed pipeline opened a difficult new chapter for the oilpatch.
Now, those activists are claiming victory.
A decade later, Alberta crude is increasingly choked off from international markets; growth forecasts have been cut in half; iconic Canadian energy companies are rebranding themselves or moving head offices; and parts of Western Canada are simmering with talk of separatism.
'Keystone was a turning point'
Several American activists interviewed in recent days cited the tactical decisions made in 2008 as setting the stage for the industry's current woes.
"Keystone was a turning point," said Kenny Bruno, an organizer and author in the environmental movement who helped shape the anti-pipeline strategy.
"It really did impact the industry — as we intended."
Anthony Swift, director of the Canada Project at the Washington-based Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), agrees that the effort helped at least curb growth even if, overall, oilsands output continues to rise.
"We really did stop expansion," Swift said.
While delays in large oil projects are now fairly common, in 2008, it was near inconceivable that the United States would reject a pipeline — especially one from Canada, Swift said.
In November of that year, activists reviewed the protest methods employed up to that point and concluded they needed new tactics.
Bruno said they talked about protesting at refineries or lobbying industrial users such as shipping companies that might be using fuel sourced in Alberta.
The problem with targeting refineries and companies, however, was there were so many of them that altering the behaviour of one would have a limited impact. Isolating Alberta oil within a company's fuel supply was also impractical, Bruno said.
But when it came to pipelines, at the time, there were only a few major cross-border projects in the works...………..More
