Biden Pledge to Dump Keystone Pipeline Would Kill Thousands of Jobs, Analysis Says
“Biden promising to revoke Keystone’s approval is a pander,” Josiah Neeley, a senior fellow in energy policy at the R Street Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon, “but unless oil prices recover it’s a meaningless pander, as the tar sands won’t be profitable anyway.”
Neeley estimated that production of a barrel of oil from the Alberta, Canada tar sands where the Keystone XL originates costs roughly $60 a barrel. With the global demand collapse due to the coronavirus pandemic, however, crude oil is currently trading around $30 to $35 a barrel, meaning there’s little economic incentive to actually dredge crude out of the ground to send down the pipeline.
