Keystone XL Decision Delayed For One More Year (At Least): Great News for ENB Investors and the Bakken

Update

March 22, 2011: No change in status. If approval is received by end of year, no increased cost to the project. If approval delayed past the end of the year, the cost of the project will have to be re-calculated.


March 18, 2011: TransCanada makes its case of Keystone XL. The project is "shovel-ready." [Comment: I still don't understand why TransCanada doesn't just scrap the whole plan, and lay the pipeline through Canada to the west coast, and then ship it to China, and now Japan. Japan is going to need all the fossil fuel they can get.]

March 17, 2011: Just one day after posting the story below and commenting on Obama's inability to decide, this op-Ed piece was published: Obama's Indecision Has Pushed Hillary Clinton Over The Edge.

Original Post

Someone, not me, has opined that President Obama is unable to make a decision. Two things come to mind immediately: the dithering over Libya, and now, the decision to delay the decision whether the Keystone XL pipeline should proceed. [Okay, he is good at deciding not to decide. Which reminds me: the president's record as voting "present" when a US Senator.] It should be noted that SecState Hillary Clinton has supported the pipeline on occasion.

The U.S. State Department announced Tuesday that it planned to conduct the additional review environmental groups had demanded. A presidential permit from the State Department is required because the pipeline would cross the U.S.-Canadian border.

This is TransCanada's "spin": the Keystone XL project enters final regulatory review.

Calgary-based TransCanada first submitted its Keystone XL project for State Department review in late 2008. The project is designed to carry crude oil from tar sands near Hardisty, Alberta, to the Gulf Coast via Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. TransCanada has also proposed connecting the pipeline to the Bakken oil field in Montana and North Dakota.

TransCanada officials had previously predicted that a decision on the project would come by the end of 2010. The State Department's decision to issue a supplemental environmental report triggers a longer review process, so the Keystone XL project will be delayed further.

Meanwhile WTI oil is up another $2.00 today, back to just under $100/bbl.