Trump Doubles Down on Keystone XL Pipeline, Issuing New Permit
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump issued a new permit for TransCanada Corp.’s controversial Keystone XL pipeline Friday, doubling down on his commitment to the project after a court ruling blocked his previous permit.
The new permit replaces the one Trump issued in 2017 that was blocked when the court said a new environmental impact statement needed to be issued. The pipeline project, proposed more than a decade ago, would carry Canadian oil sands crude from Alberta to the U.S. Midwest. Trump approved the project after President Barack Obama denied TransCanada a permit on environmental grounds.
“It looks like the intent is to wipe the slate clean and replace the previous presidential permit with this new one,” Height Securities LLC analyst Katie Bays said. Keystone XL doesn’t need the changes to the supplemental environmental impact statement “because Trump invalidated that whole process and issued this new president permit.”
“The interest in having Keystone completed has never been higher from a security standpoint,” Kevin Birn, IHS Markit’s director of North American crude oil markets, said in a phone interview. “The U.S. refiners demand heavy oil in the absence of Venezuelan” crude.
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