With the delay in Keystone XL, will attention now shift to the Northern Gateway?

I doubt, speaking from British Columbia, that Northern Gateway has a chance of approval. No magic bullet there.

Back to Plan ‘A’. Delay of Keystone XL past the 2012 election – that’s the reality – enables its backers to get an upgraded and thoughtful communications act together, and engage more effective advocates. 

Approval of the project was never a “no-brainer,” obviously. Delay can’t be put down to just “politics.” (And so what if it was?) It is a response to wide and deep opposition on several levels, of which the hazardous Nebraska routing was just one surface issue. The project’s sponsors have to respect the opposition or they lose.

Tone-deaf Calgary hears one just side of the American narrative, “Drill baby, drill” oil patch Republicans. The other and persuading side for now is probably the strongest and most effective lobbying community in the world, the US environmental movement, reinforced by increasing anxiety over national carbon energy addiction. The Canadian side has to listen in order to persuade and won’t do it with infantile and insulting arguments about “ethical oil.” There has to be demonstrable proof of commitment to reduce the oil sands’ carbon output. Just buying TV ads saying it is so, won’t do it. There has to be evidence of serious investment. So, get serious.

Email

Share

Prime Minister Harper has sent a kite flying to see if the key players in the oil patch will follow with kites of their own.
The initial response is to hug the US market even more closely. No surprise. The Asia market which pays the world reference price for oil – not the much lower price paid by the US which treats Canadian oil as US domestic production – will come to be a priority eventually but the time is not yet. 

Email

Share

At the political and media level, yes for several days at most. Keystone will go forward in 2013/14 once all regulatory approvals are obained; Northern Gateway will proceed on a slower track with much more regulatory obstruction…still, it demonstrates once again that Canada is a Pacific power (the real purpose in building the CPR 125 years ago) as well as an Atlantic and continental power. We’re both at the margins of things or at the centre, depending on one’s perspective!

Email

Share

Yes, more attention will now be paid to the Northern Gateway (by the media and others) but let us not confuse “attention” for “action”. Given the vocal interests on both sides, President Obama has done the smart thing politically by kicking the Keystone can down the road to past the 2012 Presidential election. He can’t afford to antagonize either side. If Obama wins, watch for an early approval, with some necessary route modifications to mollify the environmentalists. The oil industry will grumble, but will accept the new routing, and the environmentalists won’t be fully happy but will be able to proclaim victory as well. And the “ethical and strategically secure” Alberta oil will be ready to flow. If the Republicans win (which is hard to contemplate at this point in the campaign given the dismal list of hopefuls–but never underestimate the ability of the American voting public and the US political system to deliver results that the rest of the world considers fly in the face of common sense), Keystone will get the green light just as quickly. 

This brings us back to the Northern Gateway. It will still be going through its own environmental hurdles when the pipe for Keystone is being laid. The combination of aboriginal groups, environmentalists opposed to both the pipeline and west coast tankers, not to mention political will and funding make this a steep slope to climb. More attention to the Northern Gateway, yes. Results, doubtful. The Keystone pipeline, with minor route modifications, is going to happen. 100%. The Northern Gateway. Maybe. But don’t bet the farm on it. 

Email

Share