Canada Threatens to Sell Keystone Oil to China

Harper Looks to Asian Countries To Sell Natural Resources Bounty

Canada is now looking to Asian countries to market its abundance of oil, natural gas and minerals as plans to build the proposed Keystone XL pipeline have stalled with the U.S. administration. Prime Minister Stephen Harper will travel to China next month to discuss selling Canada's bounty to the rapidly growing nation.

The preferred initial plan was to build the $7 billion Keystone pipeline to deliver Alberta's oilsands crude to refineries in Texas on the Gulf of Mexico. Harper reasoned that the U.S. government would prefer to deal with a friendly neighbor to help meet its energy needs while creating thousands of jobs.

With widespread opposition by U.S. environmentalists, the Obama administration has delayed its decision on whether to approve the project proposed by energy giant TransCanada Pipelines.

The new plan would market to China and Asian countries through the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would transport Alberta's oil and natural gas to British Columbia for shipment by tankers.

Opposition to the Keystone Pipeline is largely based on opposition to the US importing any more energy that will be burned to produce CO2.  Oh, yes, there's some nod to concern about oil spills in allegedly sensitive ecosystems (have you ever heard of an insensitive ecosystem?), but the heart of the opposition movement is essentially to put the US on a restricted oil diet.

But, the Canadians own the oil, and it's worth nothing in the ground.  The oil will be pumped out and sold, either to us or to China.  Wouldn't we rather rely on unstable and unreliable countries like Venezuela, Mexico and Saudi Arabia for our oil, or the relative boring Canada?  I would prefer that America obtain it's own oil through increased drilling and fracking, but until then, I'd rather support the Canadians, eh?