The development of the Canadian oil sands is expected to
increase the amount of crude oil produced at the Alberta oil
sands from its current level of about 1.6 million barrels/day to
as high as 8 million barrels/day by 2020. Current exports to the
US amount to about 500,000 barrels a day, and are expected to
exceed 1.5 million barrels/day by 2020. A group of environmental
groups recently published a report on oil sands development
called “Dirty Oil Diplomacy,” taking to task the Canadian
government and the oil companies that are developing the Alberta
oil sands. In addition to blasting the current development
plans, the report also attacks plans to export the oil by
pipeline either to the West Coast, the US Gulf Coast, or the
East Coast. In the US, the most well-known of the proposed
pipelines is the Keystone XL being proposed by TransCanada Corp.
(NYSE: TRP). Kinder Morgan Inc. (NYSE: KMI) has also proposed to
reverse the flow of its Trans Mountain pipeline system to
transport crude from Edmonton to near Van