The Biden Administration is looking for ways to increase the amount of crude oil it imports from Canada, according to Wall Street Journal sources. But the Keystone XL is still persona non grata.
Canadian crude oil is a relatively close substitute in weight for the Russian crude that the United States banned after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
But additional pipelines are not one of the methods that the White House is considering to transport crude oil to the United States.
The only other options for increased imports from Canada are increasing the flows through existing pipelines and shipping the crude oil by rail. Both options are limited in their capacity, and rail transport comes with a steeper cost.
Canada has said that most of its pipelines are running at or near full capacity. It has the ability to send an additional 200,000 bpd to the United States via rail—but at a greater cost than shipping it via pipeline.
But as enthusiastic as the Biden Administration is to bring down crude oil and gasoline prices in the United States, it is not enthusiastic enough to reconsider the Keystone XL pipeline that President Biden nixed on his first day in office. Instead, the Biden Administration is holding onto two apparently opposing dreams: the President’s green agenda on the one hand and lower gasoline prices on the other.
The White House has argued that if the President moved today to revive the Keystone XL pipeline, it would not be in service to alleviate prices today.
Canada has been eager for the Biden Administration to reconsider the pipeline that would bring 830,000 bpd of crude oil from Alberta to Nebraska, where it would meet the existing Keystone pipeline. Canada also hasn’t been shy about chastising the United States for canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and for begging for more crude oil from OPEC, Iran, and Venezuela.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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