10-16-14 Our Keystone XL Pipeline Poem - "Opportunity Lost?"

10-16-14 Our Keystone XL Pipeline Poem – “Opportunity Lost?”

To our other readers throughout the US and Canada: Contact CEA to replicate the model!

CNBC's Art Cashin On Oil Prices. Readers can draw their own conclusions about how energy prices can affect the feasiblity of oil and gas pipeline and LNG projects. -dh

Macleans by Andrew Leach. If you ask Jim Prentice, the premier of Alberta, what keeps him up at night, he might say pipelines, but I’m sure oil prices aren’t too far behind….

Calgary Herald Editorial. It seems the European Union may have finally come to its senses about Alberta's oilsands. A new EU proposal that could make it easier to import crude oil derived from oilsands bitumen is good news for this province.

Our comment: North-South Keystone delay is more ammunition for West & East Canadian pipelines.

More demand from Europe may well increase competition and Asia's thirst for Canadian "secure" imports, placing more priority on Alberta-BC pipelines as well.

To the extent that low energy prices are sustained for a long period of time pipeline/LNG project financing can be adversely affected, delaying some project plans…derailing others.

Dithering vs. Decisiveness Affects Energy Projects

Meanwhile, by its Keystone XL pipeline inaction, it seems the White House is intentionally opting America out of Canadian energy transportation opportunities, jobs and economic vitality. This diplomatic failure has created a high level of mistrust between the two countries which have historically been each other's largest trading partner.

We should add that when the U.S. policy of dithering applies to national security, energy security is at risk and that is also a fact energy investors must consider.

Israel has recently demonstrated, once again, the importance of decisiveness and the principle of "peace through strength". The current "peace" has made the promise of natural gas exports more realistic, because Israel decisively answered a national security threat. It seems poised to leverage its gas exports for peaceful diplomatic ends. Its exports should have some proportional effect on world gas supply and demand.

Thus should its production enter into the calculus of other middle eastern, North American, Australian, Asian and Russian LNG project planners.

See poem below. -dh

Ode To An American Pipeline Policy Tragedy*

Dave Harbour

Your jobs-to-be now wither, hither,

as our own envoys yawn and dither;

and Canadian convoys rolling thither,

pack our pipe dreams northward, yon:

sadly, ditching US anon.

Rev. 10-16-14, 16:12, CDT

*Footnotes:

1. Ode To An American Pipeline Policy Tragedy, Copyright 2014 Dave Harbour (Note to editors: we herewith give permission for editors and publishers to reprint this poem between 10-16-14 and 12-31-14 without compensation to the author under the condition that proper attribution is made along with a link to this page and a copy or link to the copied work is forwarded here. Editors and publishers wishing to reproduce the poem after 12-31-14 are invited to contact the author for permission here.)

2. Ode To An American Pipeline Policy Tragedy: Or, Pipeline Opportunity Lost?, with Apology To John Milton. With that, we leave our cherished readers with this observation and question: TransCanada's Keystone falters as its Energy East project rises. Had earlier, decisive White House approval produced thousands of Keystone XL Pipeline jobs by now in the U.S. and Canada, would so much Alberta oil pipe capacity — East and West — now be so necessary? -dh