The North American oil industry is reportedly unfazed by the Obama administration’s failure to approve Keystone XL as well as recent indications that it will veto any legislation by the new Republican-controlled Congress allowing the pipeline to proceed. Canadian pipeline operators like Enbridge, the country’s largest, and TransCanada, which owns the Keystone system, have simply increased capacity in their other lines and are relying more heavily on rail transport to get their oil to market. “Keystone is kind of old news…producers have moved on,” a Texas oil analyst told Bloomberg.
The current blasé attitude of Canadian producers and American refiners to the delays around Keystone XL and the added capacity it would bring onstream is most likely owing to the sharp fall in global oil demand. While the issue is still being exploited by politicians in Canada and the US, meaningful pressure from the industry on the American government to approve the pipeline would probably only return if there is a strong recovery in the market.