Canada Seeks Alternatives To Transport Oil Reserves

As the United States continues to play political Ping-Pong with the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian officials and companies are desperately seeking alternatives to get the country’s nearly two hundred billion barrels in oil reserves — almost equal to that of Saudi Arabia — to market from landlocked Alberta.

Oil companies complain that they are losing revenues from pipeline bottlenecks. So Canada is plunging ahead with plans to build more pipelines of its own.

To hasten development of new export routes, the Conservative government is streamlining permit processes by accelerating scheduled hearings and limiting public comment. The government has also threatened to revoke the charitable status of environmental groups that are challenging the projects. And Public Safety Canada, the equivalent of the United States Department of Homeland Security, has classified environmentalists as a potential source of domestic terrorism.

Three new pipeline network proposals — two that call for heading west and the other east — have been put forward. In May, Enbridge, a transporter of Canadian oil exports, announced a $3 billion plan called Eastern Access. It is seeking permission to build a new "Northern Gateway Pipelines" network, to bring 525,000 barrels a day to Canada’s Pacific Coast. Kinder Morgan, a Texas-based energy company, said it will nearly double the capacity of an existing pipeline network along a different route.

Together, the new westward pipelines would carry more oil than Keystone XL would. But even with aggressive government backing, creating new pipelines may prove as difficult in Canada as it has been in the United States, though for different reasons.

Indigenous groups must be consulted if new pipelines cross their land. To gain coastal access, pipeline companies must also navigate the politics of some of the most environmentally conscious Canadian provinces, British Columbia, and Quebec, where public opinion tends to be against both pipelines and further fossil fuel development.

Vancouver’s City Council recently passed a motion requiring that pipeline companies take on one hundred percent liability for the economic and environmental costs of a worst-case spill. Even though the federal government gives permissions for pipelines, such local maneuvering and lawsuits can cause severe delays.

Obama said no to Keystone XL over issues of routing and insufficient environmental analysis, after a showdown with Congressional Republicans. No further action is expected before next year, although the pipeline builder, TransCanada, has reapplied for a permit. But as pipeline companies cast about, the United States may again be drawn into the fray over routes in other parts of the country. The most likely eastern Canadian pipeline route would reverse existing pipelines through Ontario and Quebec, and then cross the border into Vermont, heading to a tanker port in Portland, ME. Such a project was proposed in 2008 but dropped during the recession.

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