Keystone XL Construction – Deconstructed

Wrong Kind of Green
November 10, 2015

Many people remain under the assumption that the “Keystone XL” was nothing more than a proposal on paper that, thanks to the campaigning by the non-profit industrial complex (led by 350.org), a proposal that never materialized. This is not surprising as the campaign was deliberately framed this way.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The entire Keystone Pipeline System (with the exception of the much hyped phase four which constitutes 526 km/ 327 mi of pipeline) has been built and in operation, the first phase having gone into operation back in 2010. Phase 1 (3,456 km/ 2,147 mi) went online in June 2010. Phase 2 (468 km/ 291 mi) went online in February 2011. Phase 3a (700 km/ 435 miles) went online in January 2014. 76 km (47 mi) of additional pipeline will come online in 2016 which will then complete the project.

What is not understood by most is how paramount Dakota Access (what Steve Horn calls the Keystone XL clone) is in terms of both investment and industry. The Dakota Access makes Phase 4 (the northern leg) of Keystone XL completely insignificant, if not irrelevant, a Trojan Horse if you will. The Dakota Access is the clone for KXL for carrying oil obtained from the North Dakota Bakken oil/fracking boom (an ecological and social nightmare ignored by the non-profit industrial complex) – but on steroids. The pipeline the Dakota Access connects to is located on the MHA Nation (apparently originating from an oil rail transloading facility).

The Keystone clone is the combination of the Dakota Access pipeline and what it connects to: East Gulf Access Pipeline and then Enbridge’s entire system. Although Horn refers to this as the Keystone XL clone, it’s the Keystone Pipeline System on crack in terms of how much oil it’s bringing down to the Gulf: Dakota Access carries up to 7x more Bakken oil than the Bakken Marketlink on-ramp would have for KXL North (up to 750,000 barrels per day verses 100,000 barrels per day).

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