Oil pipelines dominated the energy news on Nov. 29, when Canada’s government approved one of two controversial pipelines from Alberta’s oil sands to the west coast, rejected a second and gave a pass to a third, running south to the U.S. On Dec. 4, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declined to issue a permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross the Missouri River, near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, halting a project that achieved 90% completion but attracted international opposition. Despite Canada’s approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline, officials and First Nations continued to express opposition and drew encouragement from the Sioux success.
Alberta, Canada’s oil-rich province, exports over land to the U.S. but needs additional pipeline capacity for its growing volume of oil to export to other markets. Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Trans Mountain Expansion Project is a $5.1- billion, 715-mile-long twin of the Trans Mountain pipeline that, since 1953, has operated from Edmonton, Alberta, to Burnaby, B.C. “The project will effectively triple our capacity [to 890,000 barrels per day] to get Canadian energy resources to international markets beyond the United States,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a Nov. 29 press conference.