Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Keystone Pipeline new route

Right, and if it weren't for the "deep pockets" of private enterprise, they wouldn't blink.

That works both ways. There's a smart way to approach landowners, and a not-so-smart way that tends to piss 'em off.

Help me to understand this squawk about the Keystone. Do they intend to fence off the ROW? I have pipelines both old and new running under some of my property. Both gas and oil. Except for the signs you don't know they are there and grass grows fine on top of the ground over them.
So what is the beef unless the ROW is fenced.

I worked as a surveyor for the Arkansas Highway Department for 37 years and I can tell you for a fact that some are pissed of when you get there and there is nothing that you can say to change their minds. miles

Legally TansCanada can't threaten eminent domain proceedings until the pipeline has been officially approved, yet they were doing just that (threatening eminent domain proceedings) to Nebraska ranchers and farmers last year before the pipeline route ever got hung up. The hardball (and illegal) tactics TransCanada have used here in Nebraska have rubbed land owners along the route the wrong way.

There are always people holding out. No big deal though. It happens every time.

I'm sure they're getting more hurt by the day too, as the price goes up.

That's true. I look at the guys I know who have worked as oil landmen, or on habitat projects for DU and TU. It takes a certain approach to get cooperation from landowners, not just cash.

Of course, as some have pointed out, there are those who will "oppose" because they see a cash cow and want to drive the price up as high as they can before they "support". It was ever thus. Then there are those that be oppositional-defiant just because that's their personality disorder, which is why emininet domain laws were enacted.

I was talkin' with my Dad on the phone Sunday night, and as usual--him being an oilman 'til the day he dies, and me livin' in the midst of a pretty big petroleum play out here in West Texas--talk turned to petroleum, and the Bakken shale in NoDak, and of course this Charlie Foxtrot with the Pipeline through Nebraska.

As Dad sees it (and he is in a position to know about this stuff) the big players in the Bakken and the Keystone projects are looking at Washington the same way as they look at greedy landowners who're trying to drive the price up on a well lease. Most of what's going on here is Washington trying to squeeze more money outta the project(s). They can, so they will.

But there's also a side-play going on with OPEC. Apparently the Ay-rabs are scared schitless about what's going to happen when the Keystone is built and connects to those big Gulf Coast refineries. The middle east economy is tied to petro-dollars, and for a long time they've been riding high on the hog because their oil was the cheapest product in the world. But when Keystone comes online, the price of NoDak/Saskatchewan crude is going to undercut their bottom line price by $25/barrel by current estimates. This will cause an economic crash in the middle east that is conservatively termed "catastrophic" for those local economies.

In any event, we are on the cusp of a huge moment in petroleum resource economics and history. By driving the price of crude up to meet their rising economic expectations, OPEC has created a monster that will devour them. North American petroleum reserves in the Bakken and Rocky Mountain shales were not recoverable until the price per barrel reached its recent peak. But now that exploitation has started, it's not gonna stop: the industry has been poised for this for some time and now they're gonna ROLL. And the amount of oil we have in those deposits alone dwarfs the middle east's diminishing reserves.

What Washington and OPEC don't realize is that the economic clout of the entities that will be exploiting these petroleum reserves in NoDak/Saskatchewan is going to dwarf OPEC within 10 years. And those entities, although US-based in part, are multinationals that are not subject to the whims of the enviro-idiots in Washington past a certain point.

I guess what I'm reading and hearing is saying this: Obama's administration's petulant blockade of the Keystone is metaphorically like a little kid on a beach trying to build a seawall to hold back a tsunami. The economic and political consequences of these events are going to be enormous.

I hope your dad is right. Not sure if the new multinational players will be better than OPEC, but can't be any worse.

Doc, thanks for posting that. You pretty well explained it . The cartel cost for oil is very low . They chose at this time to price it around 100. Bucks a 40 gal. Bbl. Any production weakens their position. Any one who does not support addional drilling and new piplines , I wish we could charge them more for their fuel. Hasbeen

Breaks my [bleep] heart...

HS45, the key to the OPEC price per barrel is that this is NOT the price of production per barrel: it is the price that OPEC must charge in order to maintain the Mideast economy.

The Arabs have made a deal with the devil in order to force the world economy to dance to their tune. It appears that soon they will be the ones forced to dance to the diabolic fiddle, and it will be largely their own actions that cause this.

I have lived in Nebraska my whole life and actually moved so I could be closer to the sandhills. I spend as much time in the sandhills as I can, although I am not a land owner. I'm in no way opposed to any pipeline with all the regulations and laws we already have on the books. I've met our Governor, and I think he does a pretty good job, overall, but he dang sure caved in to the greenies on this issue. He is in an election year, and the politician in him came out and grabbed him in the bll$. The old time ranchers I knew since I was a kid all had oil dump areas in the fragile sandhills and as I go back to their places (that are still in the family), I see no evidence of pollution. The kids and grandkids have changed their ways for the most part....A good thing.

Let me see now, who owns the railroads that would get to haul the oil if Keystone is not built? Berkshire Hathaway?

Yep yer very own Warren Buffet, (the tax evader) stands to make billions if the pipeline isn't built.

Now, why doesn't this surprise me?

Porkypine... the crude is being shipped out of NoDak by tanker trucks right now. What I'm hearing is that unless your personally-owned vehicle is an 18-wheeler, you'd best scratch any plans to drive north or south on I-29 for the next year or two.

What size pipe is going to be used? Trucks bumper to bumper can not move what a 36 in line can move. Hasbeen

You know it!! Trucking that crude makes as much sense as drinking beer with a teaspoon.

Thanks for posting that Doc, my next point was that this matters more to the American public than it does refineries. We'll just have to order up twice as many tankers. No big deal, profits the same whether oil is cheap or not.

Just want to bring this back up. Can anyone answer whether or no the ROW will be fenced?