“The proposed Keystone XL project consists of a 875-mile long
pipeline and related facilities to transport up to 830,000
barrels per day … of crude oil from Alberta, Canada and the
Bakken Shale Formation in Montana. The pipeline would cross the
U.S. border near Morgan, Montana and continue through Montana,
South Dakota, and Nebraska where it would connect to existing
pipeline facilities near Steele City, Nebraska for onward
delivery to Cushing, Oklahoma and the Texas Gulf Coast region.”
I should acknowledge up front both that I am an infrastructure
enthusiast and that I think Keystone XL is a very smart
infrastructure project. Montana, North Dakota, and probably
Alberta crude would sell for $20 a barrel more than it does now
if it could be cheaply transported to Houston, Texas. A rough,
quick and dirty calculation suggests that XL, which will move
800,000 barrels a day at low cost, would generate about $6
billion in net benefit per year; that’s a present value of
approximately $120 billion (i.e., the size of