Keystone XL

KILGORE, TX
January 29, 2012

The U.S. imports both crude oil and other petroleum products from many countries, but this article focuses only on crude oil imports. The numbers used were average barrels imported per day from Jan 2011 through Sep 2011, because these are the last available statistics, and 2010’s numbers are so similar that they don’t affect the averages significantly. See the numbers here: http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

Based on these numbers, the crude imports from the top 15 countries supplying the U.S. account for over 95% of all imports. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and Oman are the only four middle-east countries to make the Top-15 list. Canada alone supplies 16% more crude oil per day than the four middle-east countries combined. Canada and Mexico together account for almost 40% of our crude imports.

After extraction and preparing for export, Canadian oil is very clean, meaning the vast majority of all solids, salts, water, sulfur, coke, and other materials have been removed. This makes it very desirable for refining into finished products, because some of the processing needed to convert the crude into finished products is already done. Cleaner, simpler, smaller refineries can handle the Canadian crude, turning it quickly into gasoline, jet fuel, and other products needed here in the states.

Crude oil from Venezuela and most areas in the middle-east is very heavy, and has less BTU potential than light, sweet oil from places such as North Sea, West Texas, and Canada. The process to refine this heavy oil requires more energy input, and creates more waste product than lighter crudes.

Earlier this month, President Obama sided with the environmentalist when he decided against building a major pipeline that would bring massive quantities of this quality Canadian crude to our major high-volume refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Whatever his reasoning, it can’t be because the proposed path crosses pristine, sensitive areas previously untouched by the industry.

If a person looks at the current U.S. petroleum product pipeline system, they will see major long-haul pipelines already crossing the very same areas as the path for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
http://www.theodora.com/pipelines/united_states_pipelines_map.jpg

The map at the link above shows only the major long-haul main lines. There are thousands of smaller feeder and spur lines also in the same areas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_us_ng_pipelines.gif

So, why haven’t we broken ground on the Keystone XL? Because our own government has turned the project into a game of political ping-pong.

Democrats always have both labor and environmentalists on their side, but they’ve sided with the greenies on this one, even though the unions have a solid 4-1 majority over environment. Logic dictates that a politician who sides with both should always pick labor when the two sides disagree. It’s strictly a numbers game.

Republicans have spent way too much time the last three years telling us how the man currently in the White House is the cause for our pain and suffering, even though the problem was already all over us before the election. The Republicans screwed up the economy with bad banking regulations, and are now trying to insure we stay angry about the Democrats not fixing a problem they created.

I suppose it’s too much to expect for the politicians on both sides to take a break from flinging crap at each other to get something done that actually needs doing. There is a real opportunity in front of us to reduce our dependency on crude oil from the middle-east and South America, but only if we can get it from the oil sands of northern Alberta to our high-volume refineries on the Gulf Coast. It’s time for our politicians to quit worrying about what’s in it for them, and do something that will benefit us all.