Calgary-based TransCanada Corporation confirmed last week that it’s still searching for customers to fill its Keystone XL pipeline in spite of persistently low global oil prices, the continuing departure of investors in the Alberta tar sands/oil sands, and widening recognition that production in the region is slowing down.
“Company spokeswoman Jacquelynn Benson said the company is looking for 225,000 barrels a day of commitments on the controversial Keystone XL project, which would have capacity to ship about 830,000 barrels a day” from Alberta to the U.S., Canadian Press reports. “The chief executives of both Suncor Energy and Cenovus Energy said Thursday that they remain supporters of the proposed pipeline, though Cenovus CEO Brian Ferguson said the company has alternatives for exporting oil if Keystone XL doesn’t go ahead.”
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The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has cut its projection of Alberta oil production in 2030 by 1.5 million barrels per day.
TransCanada launched an “open season” process to sign up new shippers by September 28, and the company’s president of liquids pipelines, Paul Miller, said he was optimistic that customers will be found. “We’ve had good support from our legacy shippers, which gives us a good base to launch this open season,” he said.
But the company won’t make a final decision on whether to build the pipeline until December, Reuters reports. And on Tuesday, the Omaha World-Herald summarized the growing skepticism the project is attracting from U.S. oil industry insiders, with oilprice.com calling Keystone XL “obsolete” and the Houston-based editor of Pipeline & Gas Journal calling Keystone’s putative revival “the biggest fake news story of the year.”
