My pipeline choice was always TransCanada’s Energy East as it was an opportunity to share Alberta’s oil riches with an economically depressed part of Canada.
It was a national project that would help cut our energy umbilical cord from the States.
But, alas, I also knew it was a pipe dream that would need huge taxpayer investment and subsidies to make it financially viable for TransCanada.
Keeping jobs in Canada and getting our oil to tidewater without having to take the American discounted West Texas Intermediate price would be great. The problem, however, since the time of Confederation, our economies flow north-south much more efficiently and economically than east-west.
From a shareholder’s point of view, the Keystone pipeline is the winning investment. It’s shorter, only 1,817 kilometres versus Energy East’s 4,600 kilometres (3,000 converted and 1,600 new).
Yes, Keystone will face another fight through Nebraska as ranchers, American natives and environmentalists stand up for their water. But this time the National Guard will ensure a TransCanada win because the man at the top is in their camp.
I’ve heard arguments recently that because this project has been cancelled, we have to continue receiving feedstock from rogue countries like Nigeria, Iran and Venezuela rather than from Alberta.
Talk about misdirection. Feedstock for East Coast refineries is light crude and upwards of 90 per cent is imported from Norway and the United States.
Gulf coast refineries were refitted years ago to accept both Alberta and Venezuelan bitumen. And all Western nations since World War II have been supporting rogue nations such as Saudi Arabia to garner favour and access to the cheapest-to-produce oil on the planet.
Finally, many of our home-grown companies have or are investing and working in these rouge states. Talisman Energy of Calgary and the Sudanese civil war was not that many years ago for us to have forgotten.
Corporations seek profits, not national agendas or human rights.
Shareholders of CN and CP Rail give a sigh of relief every time a pipeline is cancelled.
What company on their own dime would refit refineries in Eastern Canada to receive bitumen when Gulf State refineries, with significantly lower wages, can already do the job?
When industry experts say two pipelines is all we need and the KinderMorgan pipeline is already approved, why would TransCanada want a third pipeline? They’d be shooting themselves in their pocketbook! Excess capacity always equals lower prices and reduced profits.
Energy East was always TransCanada’s second choice and appeared on the scene only after the apparent demise of the Keystone dream.
The National Energy Board’s expanded environmental requirements and the Mayor of Montreal were great excuses for cancelling the project, but it was never the primary reason. It did not make economic sense when compared to Keystone.
Any other reasons you’ve been fed are simply misdirection of the facts.
by B.P. Schimke
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