keystone pipeline project

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How to Pick the Winners in the Keystone Debate

By Guest Contributor, Keystone Expose, Money Morning - May 7, 2015

You might think the entire oil and gas industry is behind the Keystone XL Pipeline. And at the surface level that may be true.

After all, the big oil industry lobby, the American Petroleum Institute (API), has spent millions promoting it through advertising and outreach to members of Congress. API are the folks who brought us all of those pro-Keystone commercials a few months ago.

Since API represents the industry, with over 600 members, the project must be good for everyone in the energy space, right?

Not so fast. There will be some big winners if the pipeline proceeds - but a lot more will be either unaffected or potentially hurt by more oil sloshing into the U.S. market...

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How to Pick the Winners in the Keystone Debate

By Guest Contributor, Keystone Expose, Money Morning - May 7, 2015

You might think the entire oil and gas industry is behind the Keystone XL Pipeline. And at the surface level that may be true.

After all, the big oil industry lobby, the American Petroleum Institute (API), has spent millions promoting it through advertising and outreach to members of Congress. API are the folks who brought us all of those pro-Keystone commercials a few months ago.

Since API represents the industry, with over 600 members, the project must be good for everyone in the energy space, right?

Not so fast. There will be some big winners if the pipeline proceeds - but a lot more will be either unaffected or potentially hurt by more oil sloshing into the U.S. market...

Keystone and the Mixed Blessings of Cheap Oil

By Guest Contributor, Keystone Expose, Money Morning - May 6, 2015

Editor's Note: Our energy industry insider - who for professional reasons must remain anonymous - yesterday explained how the Keystone XL Pipeline debate is largely a political football. Today, he advances his controversial exposé of Keystone in the context of today's cheap oil, and whether the project would do more harm than good. This shows how energy investors should position their portfolios to reap the best returns at the lowest risk.

To understand the logic behind the Keystone XL pipeline requires a trip back in time. When Keystone and its associated 830,000 barrels of oil per day were announced in 2008, U.S. crude production was at lows generally not seen since 1950 - right around 5 million barrels per day.

Meanwhile, U.S. oil imports were rampant, near their all-time highs of 10 million barrels a day.

Worse yet, over half of U.S. imports, again a near-record high of 5.6 million barrels per day, came from countries that don't like us very much (i.e., OPEC).

In a nutshell, the U.S. oil and gas industry was in decline, without much hope for a real renaissance. We were meeting a whopping two-thirds of our appetite for oil with imports, and over half of those imports were coming from potentially unstable, if not outright hostile, nations.

In that context, Keystone looked like a great idea.

Decisions based on these assumptions - such as the decision to green-light Keystone - seem in retrospect to be perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately for the project and the economy at large, the energy industry has since changed dramatically.

These changes have altered the project's consequences for everyone...

The Truth Behind the Keystone Pipeline

By Guest Contributor, Keystone Expose, Money Morning - May 5, 2015

Editor's Note: The Keystone Pipeline has created one of the biggest political debates of the last five years. And you're about to hear a lot more in the media as the we move closer to the State Department's final ruling on the project.

But what is the truth about Keystone? And where are the lies hidden? More importantly, where can we invest to exploit its ongoing political soap opera?

We've asked one senior energy analyst to write the following exposé on the pipeline. He asks not to be identified because this analysis is so controversial.

What you'll find in today's segment, and the two that follow, will shock you. If you want to finally know who really benefits from Keystone - and how this one single project could keep energy sector growth stagnant - then read on...

The Keystone XL Pipeline saga should be laid to rest in the coming months when the U.S. State Department issues its final ruling on the project.

One would be hard-pressed to find a business issue that's more politically polarizing and contentious. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have used it to bludgeon their opponents, often with little evidence to support their claims...

A Nearly Identical Keystone XL Pipeline Just Got Built – and No One Noticed

By David Zeiler, Associate Editor, Money Morning • @DavidGZeiler - February 11, 2015

The drama over the Keystone pipeline will rise to new heights when the Republican-controlled Congress sends its bill approving the project to President Barack Obama today (Wednesday).

But in the context of America's vast energy pipeline network, you have to wonder how the Keystone XL became an issue in the first place. The Keystone pipeline, you see, is far from unique. Even cross-border pipelines are not all that rare.

This proves the Keystone pipeline is nothing but political bluster...