While the giant sleeps… With Congress and the Obama Administration deadlocked over how to proceed with the Keystone Pipeline, two private companies are planning on turning it into opportunity.
Two energy companies have proposed new pipelines that could transport 850,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries by the middle of 2014. They are productions that could help ease the nation’s high gasoline prices.
Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners and Canada’s Enbridge already operate the Seaway Pipeline, which moved oil north from Texas to Oklahoma. The companies said they would reverse the flow, allowing Seaway to move 150,000 barrels southward by June 1st of this year, and 400,000 barrels a day by early next year. Enterprise and Enbridge have several additional new pipelines planned. It all adds up to a lot of production work here at home and a lot of additional oil. But unlike Keystone, it doesn’t have a lot of politics involved.
Experts say these Enterprise and Enbridge projects aren’t subject to a State Department review because the pipeline portions at the border are already built. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which has become a political football in this presidential election year, and the new projects both require approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, as well as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
But the fight for growing our domestic oil production is far from over. Forget politics -- environmental groups still see a problem with the new plans because the crude comes from oil sands – a more corrosive type of oil, more likely to leak.
So don’t expect a miracle drop in the price at the pump anytime soon…