The Obama Administration has rejected Canadian energy giant TransCanada's application to build the Keystone XL Pipeline.
The decision caps a seven-year saga that became one of the biggest environmental flashpoints of Barack Obama's presidency.
"They'll be disappointed up in Canada, because this would have been another avenue to move Canadian oil sands down to the U.S., and specifically further on down to refiners in the Gulf Coast,” said Andy Lipow, president of Houston-based Lipow Oil Associates. “On the other hand, the refiners on the Gulf Coast will be disappointed, because it makes it more expensive to move Canadian oil sands material to their refineries, and they may turn to more crude by rail."
As designed, the Keystone XL would have transported extra heavy crude oil from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada directly to refineries in Port Arthur. An extension from the main pipeline would have run to Houston.
