Fact check: Keystone tube spin

With a showdown opinion entrance on a Keystone XL pipeline, both sides continue to spin a contribution about exports and safety.

• Critics continue to call it an “export pipeline” while proponents contend a oil it carries would be “used by Americans, not exported overseas.” Actually, somewhere between 38% and 50% of a outlay during a coastal refineries it would offer was exported in a many new 12 months on record, depending on assumptions.

• Critics explain that building a tube won’t stop derailments of tank cars carrying wanton oil. Perhaps not entirely. But a fact is that rail shipments of Canadian wanton oil into a U.S. are surging while derailments, spills and fires are apropos some-more common, and a tube is a many cheaper and safer approach of carrying that oil.

The Senate is approaching to opinion this week on either to overrule President Obama’s halt of a check upheld by a Republican-controlled Congress to force capitulation of a project. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has betrothed a cloture opinion no after than March 4

EXPORTS

The Keystone XL plan would move oil from Alberta conflicting a U.S. limit for contingent smoothness to U.S. refineries on a Gulf Coast. Opponents including a Natural Resources Defense Council have called it an “export pipelineRhea Suh

But TransCanada Corporation — that would build a tube — says usually a opposite. For example, in a 15-second TV mark that ran quickly in Washington D.C., it pronounced a tube would lift oil “to U.S. refineries to be used by Americans, not exported overseas.

Who’s right? Each side is revelation usually half a story.

The fact is that many if not all of a Canadian wanton is designated to be processed in U.S. refineries, not exported directly. But a vast apportionment of a diesel fuel, gasoline and other products of those refineries is indeed approaching to be sole overseas. Exactly how many is unfit for us to predict, however. And consultant sources are in disagreement.

We cantotal polished productGulf Coast district went for export

That doesn’t support a NRDC’s explain that a polished product would go “mostly” for export. However, NRDC’s analysts disagree that a Keystone wanton would go essentially to several export-oriented refineries that are located tighten to pier facilities, bypassing internal refineries in a Gulf district that offer mostly domestic markets.

The district, famous as PADD3

NRDC told us a calculations assume that all of a Canadian wanton entrance by a tube would go usually to coastal refineries in TexasLouisiana

Using NRDC’s assumptions, and information from a U.S. Energy Information Administration, we calculate that 50.4% of a outlay of those refineries went for trade in 2014. But that means 49.6% stayed in a U.S.

As for other experts, a U.S. State Department’s marketplace analysis

But a some-more new report from IHS Inc

Neither a State Department news nor IHS showed how they had distributed their particular figures. Based usually on EIA statistics, we can contend that no some-more than 50.4% of a oil would be unfailing for trade as polished product underneath today’s conditions, yet a figure would expected grow over time presumption that a stream bang in fuel exports continues.

In addition, some apportionment of a Canadian oil might be exported directly. The EIA reports that a U.S. is now exporting some-more wanton oil than it has in 57 yearsplans to trade reduction than 1.5%

SAFETY

The explosion and firePipeline Primer

Suh, a NRDC’s president, remarkable — rightly — that a West Virginia sight was carrying oil from North Dakota, “like a sight that exploded final year in Virginiablew adult a year before that in Alabama

“The connect sands tube won’t take that oil off a tracks,” she settled in her op-ed.

This spins a facts. For one thing, indicating to derailments that spilled usually U.S. oil glosses over others that have spilled Canadian oil. For example:

• On Feb. 14 — usually dual days before a West Virginia pile-up — several tank cars carrying wanton oil and essence from Alberta to eastern Canada derailed and burnt in a remote area nearby Gogama, Ontario. A sum of 21 cars were shop-worn by a fire, and during slightest 19 spilled a sum sum of over 1 million liters (264,172 U.S. gallons) of petroleum product, according to a rough report

• A year earlier, a 120-car sight carrying Canadian wanton oil derailed in Pennsylvania

• In Jan of final year, a sight carrying wanton oil and propane derailed and burnt

Fortunately, nothing of these have come tighten to repeating a 2013 disaster in Lac Megantic

But it’s a fact that some-more and some-more Canadian oil is being shipped by rail into a U.S. The volume has grown some-more than ten-fold in a past 3 years, from an normal of 15,980 barrels per day during a initial 3 months of 2012 to 182,059 barrels per day in a July-September entertain of final year, according to many new sum from Canada’s National Energy Board

Suh chose her difference delicately when she wrote that a Keystone tube would not take “that” oil off a tracks. Grammatically, she was referring usually to a “North Dakota” oil she mentioned in her prior sentence, and not to Canadian oil.

But even that slight explain is open to critical dispute. The fact is, TransCanada says it has sealed organisation contracts to ride 65,000 barrels per day of U.S. wanton oil

Contrary to a NRDC president’s suggestion, there’s no doubt that a tube would take “oil off a rails” wherever that tube goes, either a wanton originates in a U.S. or Canada. That’s since it is not usually reduction dangerous to boat oil by siren than by rail, though distant reduction costly as well.

How many reduction expensive? Significantly less.

The Association of Oil Pipelines

We determine with a NRDC’s boss that a Keystone won’t stop all

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