Alberta’s energy minister said the Biden administration’s worries about high fuel prices could have been avoided had it not rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
U.S. President Joe Biden canceled Keystone XL’s permit on his first day in office in January, dealing a death blow to a project that would have carried 830,000 barrels per day of heavy oil sands crude from Alberta to Nebraska.
Minister Sonya Savage said it was ironic that the U.S. called on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to deliver more oil this year after ruling out a pipeline that would have delivered cleaner oil from Canada.
“Oil and gas will continue be produced,” said Savage. The challenge for the energy industry is to reduce emissions from that production. “We are going to need it all,” she said, also referring to projects to produce clean-burning hydrogen in Alberta.
Canadian pipeline operator TC Energy, which had proposed Keystone XL, last month filed an arbitration claim against the U.S. government under the North American Free Trade Act seeking some $15 billion in damages.
(Reuters)
