TransCanada will reroute Keystone XL
IRJ – October 15 –Energy and infrastructure giant TransCanada has announced that it will reroute the planned US$7 billion Keystone XL tar sands pipeline expansion plan to direct it away from the environmentally contentious Sandhills area of Nebraska, two officials confirmed late on Monday.
Although the company previously stated that such a change in plans would not be possible—or would likely threaten the project’s economics to breaking point— Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada's president for energy and oil pipelines, stated that a new route is in the works, Nebraska is a key player in its decision-making process, and at this stage a ball park estimate of additional infrastructure is around 30 to 40 extra miles of pipe and an additional pumping station.
“We're confident that collaborating with the state of Nebraska will make this process much easier,” Pourbaix said.
“We do remain confident that we could have built a safe pipeline through the original route that was approved by the State Department,” he said of previous plans for construction. Previously, the planned Keystone XL pipeline spanned 1,661-miles of pipeline running approximately 700,000 barrels a day of crude from Alberta in Canada and the Gulf coast of Texas, via Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
Last week, the U.S. State Department elected to delay the approvals process for Keystone XL in order to bank up more time to investigate environmental impacts which may result from its construction.
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