There has been a lot of self congratulatory praise for getting Obama to veto the Keystone pipeline. But while this process was taking place many do not know that the oil industry was not asleep and was working around the issue as fast as it could. To wit..
NOTE below post is from the blog Peakoil.com from one of their most knowledgeable posters (Rockman) whom I have been reading for many years. He has been running large scale drilling programs for 30+ years.
The Keystone issue is largely irrelevant as you will see.
by ROCKMAN » Sun 01 Mar 2015, 15:59:34
Perhaps TPTB might want to consider changing the title of this thread to "The Flanagan South Pipeline" since 3 months ago the FSP essentially achieved the stated goal of the KXL Pipeline by delivering oil sands production to Cushing. From there the expanded pipelines to Texas refiners have eliminated that restriction to oil sands development.
Given all the ridiculous attention given the rather irrelevant KXL permit folks might not know much about the FS Pipeline. It’s bringing heavy crude from collection terminals in Illinois to an Oklahoma storage hub. Flanagan South made its initial delivery the first week of December, 2014, to Cushing, OK. Built at a cost of $2.6 billion, the Flanagan South line has the capacity to transport nearly 600,000 barrels of oil per day. The diluted bitumen is eventually destined for refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast via an expanded Seaway Pipeline system. Flanagan South’s product begins arriving at a time when crude stocks at the Cushing storage hub reportedly had fallen to nearly a minimum-operating capacity. Along its 600-mile path, Flanagan South crosses four states and 31 U.S. counties — including eight in Illinois, 11 in Missouri, seven in Kansas and four in Oklahoma.
Interesting we’ve heard almost no protests and MSM reports about a pipeline crossing so many jurisdictions that has the same capacity as the “horrifying” northern leg of KXL, eh? But the Rockman has presented this end run for more then 2 years as well as end run by the Keystone Pipeline connecting to the southern leg of KXL, with another 600,000 bopd capacity moving across the border. It’s been moving oil directly from Alberta to Texas for more then a year. This is the reason for storage volumes at Cushing falling so low.
So boys, are we going to bury this dying KXL permit non-issue and focus of the relevant dynamics of oil sands imports to the US? Maybe it could be moved to a politics section since that's the only really noteworthy aspect IMHO.
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