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OTTAWA—The federal government says it will renew efforts to ship Canadian oil to Asian markets after the White House rejected plans for a $7 billion pipeline to move Alberta crude into the U.S.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Barack Obama in a phone call Wednesday he was “profoundly disappointed” with the U.S. decision on the Keystone XL project and pointedly said that Canada would seek other markets for its energy exports.
Soon after the two leaders spoke, Obama made public his decision to deny the application by Canadian energy giant TransCanada Corp. to build the pipeline, citing a “rushed and arbitrary deadline” imposed by Congress to review the project.
“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people,” Obama said in a statement.
The $7 billion pipeline would have run 3,134 kilometres from Alberta across six states, carrying half a million barrels of oil sands crude a day to Texas refineries.
Environmentalists, who oppose development of the Alberta oil sands and had raised concerns about the pipeline’s routing across sensitive Nebraska lands, praised the decision.
Those lands, known as the Sand Hills, had emerged as a flashpoint for opposition to the pipeline among opponents who feared a pipeline breach would foul the terrain and the shallow water tables below.
However, the U.S. administration left the door open for TransCanada to submit another application to address those concerns.
In its own statement, the company said it remained “fully committed” to the project and said it would reapply in hopes of getting approval that would allow the pipeline to be up and running by 2014.
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver expressed optimism the pipeline will eventually be built, citing its economic benefits and promise of energy security for the U.S.
“The process is not yet over and we are hopeful this project will be approved in the future based on its merits,” he said.
But the U.S. decision appears to have strengthened Canada’s resolve to find other buyers for its energy, notably Japan and China, where Harper is scheduled to visit next month.
For the rest of this article, please go to the Toronto Star website: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1117490–ottawa-looks-to-asia-after-u-s-rejects-keystone-pipeline-project