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Keystone XL Pipeline Project Analysis

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According to the many resources on the TransCanada website dedicated to the Keystone XL Pipeline project, the company is working hard to manage the TransCanada reputation as it relates to this project and the opinion that the public is forming. There is an entire section of the website that reviews the “myths and facts” as they relate to the Keystone XL Project (TransCanada, 2015). This type of reputation management is essential to companies facing controversy.
The Keystone XL Pipeline is the key project bringing TransCanada to the forefront of news in the past few years in the US. With an asset base of $59 billion, TransCanada lists completion of $46 billion in capital growth projects for the coming years as a key to the company …show more content…

It is considered a critical infrastructure project for the United States and for the American Economy by some. The pipeline will have the capacity to transport up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day to the Gulf Coast and Midwest refineries, reducing American dependence on oil from Venezuela and the Middle East by up to 40 percent (TransCanada, 2015).
The Keystone XL Pipeline must be distinguished from the Keystone Pipeline. The original Keystone Pipeline finished construction before the end of 2011. The original pipeline stretches from Alberta to Illinois, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas and is over 2,148 miles long. The project was a cooperative effort between TransCanada and the American owned company ConocoPhillips (Mitchell, Keystone XL timeline:road to controversy., 2014).
The US and Canada are currently crisscrossed by thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines, but none have drawn the attention and political controversy of the Keystone XL pipeline project. The Canadian National Energy Board and the Public Utilities Commissions of Montana and South Dakota all approved the XL project by March of 2010. Unfortunately, the US Environmental Protection Agency rejected the project’s first environmental impact study in July 2010 as inadequate and a second impact study was released in 2011 (Oil-Price.net, …show more content…

In March of 2015, it also failed to get the vote need to override that presidential veto. It has been over 2,300 days since TransCanada submitted the application to the US Department of State to build the Keystone XL Pipeline. Since then, the Republicans and Democrats have been on opposing sides of the controversy. While TransCanada claims that it has bipartisan support in Congress and with the American public, the political fight continues (Mitchell,

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