New pipeline application filed

CALGARY—TransCanada is taking another crack at winning a permit to build its Keystone XL oil pipeline after the Obama administration nixed an earlier iteration of it.
The Calgary-based company said today that it has filed a new application with the U.S. State Department for a segment of pipe between the Canada-U.S. border and Steele City, Neb.

“Our application for a Presidential Permit builds on more than three years of environmental review already conducted for Keystone XL,” CEO Russ Girling said in a release.
“It was the most comprehensive process ever for a cross-border pipeline, and that work should allow our cross-border permit to be processed expeditiously and a decision made once a new route in Nebraska is determined,” he added.
TransCanada expects to begin construction in early 2013, with oil flowing in late 2014 or early 2015.
The line would run from Hardisty, Alta. to Steele City, Neb. The NEB signed off on the Canadian portion of the line years ago.
The application will include a new route through Nebraska, which the state also is reviewing, that will skirt the ecologically-sensitive Sand Hills region.
Routes through Montana and South Dakota already have been reviewed.
Federal Natural Resources minister Joe Oliver, speaking in Toronto, said the new route increases the likelihood the project will be approved.
“I’ve been cautiously optimistic, I’m a little less cautious now,” Oliver said at a news conference today.
Though “pleased” to see the pipeline proposal progress, the government will continue to seek new markets for Canadian oil, with a particular eye on the Asia-Pacific region, Oliver added.
“We want that to happen at the same time as we enrich and increase our bilateral relationship [with the U.S.],” he remarked.