As crude oil is pumped out of Canada’s tar sands at increasing rates, the government of Alberta is looking at alternatives to pipeline transportation, including an Atlantic shipping plan that would utilize Northern waters to reach foreign markets.
The main motivation here is money — and a lot of it. With a stall in the Keystone pipeline, an estimated $30 billion worth of oil is stifled from the market due to the lack of reliable transportation.
“Really, it speaks to the importance that access to the market has,” Nathan Lemphers, an analyst with the Pembina Institute, told the Alaska Dispatch.
While the Keystone XL is likely to see approval by President Barack Obama, he has twice delayed his decision — and oil companies aren’t willing to sit around and wait for another chance. While environmentalists would consider even a delay of the pipeline project as a victory, it wouldn’t end the fight, as transporting tar sand oil in the Arctic waters increases opportunity for devastating oil spills.
Greenpeace has emerged as a major protector of the Arctic zone, declaring victory last month when ConocoPhillips said it would hold off on plans to drill off Alaska’s coast. In February, Royal Dutch Shell stated it would halt drilling in the Arctic in 2013.
The moves by oil companies weren’t necessarily motivated by environmental concerns. The costs associated with oil spill cleanup are high, and in mid-March, the U.S. government banned Royal Dutch Shell from drilling in the Arctic for a history of accidents, including a 2012 oil rig crash in the Gulf of Alaska.
The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill dumped more than 250,000 barrels of crude oil into the Arctic, and remnants of that oil still remain in the water today.
In April, a group of Greenpeace adventurers from around the world traveled to the North Pole to plant a flag on the North Pole seabed, a symbolic move to protect the Arctic waters from the oil industry.
“We’re here to say this special area of the Arctic belongs to no person or nation, but it is the common heritage of everyone on earth. We’re asking that this area be declared a global sanctuary, off limits to oil companies and political posturing,” Josefina Skerk, a Greenpeace explorer, told the Guardian.
But with $30 billion dollars a year on the line for Canada’s tar sands oil industry, it seems the fight will be steep for environmentalists.
Open waters
The proposal currently on the table calls for a pipeline from Alberta’s tar sands, north to Tuktoyaktuk, an Arctic coastal town. From there, it would be transported by barge to Asia or Europe.
Canada isn’t alone in its turn to Arctic waters for oil transportation. According to the Alaska Dispatch, the eight Arctic nations will sign an agreement this month dedicated to a common set of guidelines regarding search and rescue related to the transportation. Port design, icebreaker design and vessel traffic tracking programs are also being considered, according to the newspaper.
North Dakota’s bakken oil region is also looking to water shipping as a viable transportation method. In December, Enbridge announced plans to construct a pipeline connecting the Bakken region to the ports of Superior, Wis., which provide access to the Great Lakes.
Enbridge Oil is responsible for the construction, claiming the production at the Bakken was exceeding expectations, with more than 700,000 barrels a day produced. The new “
Sandpiper” pipeline will pump 200,000 barrels of oil a day through North Dakota, Minnesota and onto Superior, Wis., which borders Minnesota.
That same company is looking at increasing its flow of oil from a pipeline connecting Canada to the same port — a controversial move in the aftermath of the Mayflower, Ark. oil spill. While the cause of that spill is not yet concrete, it’s estimated that the 60-year-old Pegasus pipeline couldn’t handle the 90,000 barrels of crude oil pumped each day.
The new request by Enbridge seeks to pump more than 880,000 barrels a day — double the line’s current capacity — to the Superior, Wis. port.
Access to Lake Superior gives oil companies access to refineries in Chicago, Cleveland and Ontario.
While pipeline spills remain a point of controversy, transporting it on the nation’s freshwater resources brings a whole new set of concerns. The Great Lakes provide drinking water for more than 30 million people in the U.S. and Canada, with a fishing industry worth $7 billion and a recreation industry that tops that at $16 billion.
“Oil tankers on Lake Superior? What could possible go wrong? That clearly sounds like a bad idea,” Sierra Club volunteer Nancy Shiffler told the Detroit Free Press.
Oil transportation is nothing new for the Great Lakes. In 2010, 3.7 million tons of petroleum products were shipped on the waters, including 48,000 tons of crude oil.