It Must Be A Slow News Day For The Energy Reporter

Pipeline called key to Canada oil sands: extracting may not be economically viable without the pipeline.

There was one story this past week suggesting the Keystone XL was not all that important; Alberta was still getting the bulk of oil to market without the new pipeline. I accepted the premise. But I did note that the issue was getting "curiouser and curiouser."

Now, this from the WSJ today. 

In a report this past week, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers projected oil-sands production capacity will more than double by 2030 to more than five million barrels a day. If the Keystone expansion is blocked, production could exceed shipping capacity by as early as 2016—unless rail delivery takes up the slack.

"We're very confident the market will respond," said Greg Stringham, CAPP vice president.

Keystone is just the highest profile among a spate of pipeline projects that would be needed to carry all of the growing Canadian oil production to distant markets. The CAPP report says that even if all proposed pipelines for Canadian crude are built on schedule, oil-sands production will still fall short of the 2030 forecast by one million barrels a day.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't seem to excite me, and if it doesn't excite me, I doubt it will "move" Obama on the issue. But the tea leaves suggest he is will still approve it. At least when I last read the tea leaves about two months ago.

By the way, whenever I see a story on the Keystone XL now, my first thought: it must be a slow news day. This is a non-story until the announcement is made, one way or the other.