Keystone XL is the comeback kid

The Canadian Press reports Republicans in the US Congress are once again attempting to force through the approval of TransCanada’s Keystone XL project.

Republicans are trying to include provisions that would approve the Alberta-to-Texas pipeline in a highway bill that is working its way through both houses of the legislature this week.

The Canadian Press reports:

The energy component of the package includes a measure that would reverse President Barack Obama’s decision last month to reject the $7.6-billion pipeline that would transport oilsands bitumen from northern Alberta through six U.S. states to Gulf Coast refineries.

Reuters reports:

TransCanada Corp expects to reapply for a presidential permit for its delayed Keystone XL pipeline “in the near future” and expects it will receive the approval early in 2013, the head of the company’s pipeline division said on Tuesday.

At the same time TransCanada is considering building the 800,000 barrel a day pipeline in phases starting with the section that goes from Cushing Oklahoma, where inventories have been piling up, to the Gulf Coast getting attention first.

Fox Business reports:

Canadian pipeline company TransCanada Corp. (TRP) said it has received more interest from oil shippers in splitting off the southernmost piece of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project, which wouldn’t need the same cross-border approval that is stalling the full pipeline, envisioned to run from Alberta to Texas.

A ramp up in production in Canada and the US is the reason for the Cushing glut which has made Canadian oil sands output some of the cheapest crude on the planet.

Alberta oil sands production is set to more than double to 3.7 million barrels by 2025 out of a total of 4.7 million including conventional oil. Production in the US, particularly from the Bakken basin in North Dakota, will see the country ramp up current output of 7.8 million barrels/day to 10.9 million barrels over the next few years.

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