TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Delayed by years of bureaucratic red tape and environmentalist opposition, Canadian energy infrastructure operator TransCanada on Monday revealed that it had written a letter to US State Department Secretary John Kerry, asking the department to pause its review of the ‘presidential permit’ application for the Keystone XL pipeline.

"We are asking State to pause its review of Keystone XL, based on the fact that we have applied to the Nebraska Public Service Commission (PSC) for approval of its preferred route in the state. I note that when the status of the Nebraska pipeline route was challenged last year, the State Department found it appropriate to suspend its review until that dispute was resolved. We feel a similar suspension would be appropriate under the current circumstances,” TransCanada president and CEO Russ Girling stated.

TransCanada in September filed an application with the Nebraska PSC to seek approval for the Keystone XL route through the state, dropping its ‘eminent domain’ actions to force landholders to provide it access to land and taking steps to terminate constitutional court proceedings in Holt County, Nebraska.

The project had undergone five independent reviews of safety and potential environmental impacts by the US State Department, as well as one authored by the state of Nebraska after its year-long public process. All reviews concluded that the project could be built and operated safely, with minimal impact on the environment.

Despite having route authority to build the pipeline, uncertainty in the courts around the constitutionality of how the route was approved was likely to proceed to the Nebraska Supreme Court.

"After careful review, we believe that going through the PSC process is the clearest path to achieving route certainty for the Keystone XL project in Nebraska. It ultimately saves time, reduces conflict with those who oppose the project and sets clear rules for approval of the route,” Girling said in September.

Should the request be granted, TransCanada expected to secure route approval by the PSC in 7 to 12 months.

The Keystone XL pipeline project would provide Canadian and US oil producers greater access to the large refining markets in the American Midwest and along the US Gulf Coast.

The project proposed a 1 897 km, 36-inch-diameter crude oil pipeline, beginning in Hardisty, Alberta, Canada, and extending south to Steele City, Nebraska, in the US. The pipeline was seen as a critical infrastructure project for the US's energy security, while being able to narrow the discount crude producers in the Alberta oilpatch received over their southern rivals.

Along with transporting bitumen from Canada, the Keystone XL pipeline would also support the significant growth of crude oil output in the US from producers in the Bakken region of Montana and North Dakota.

The $8-billion pipeline would have capacity to transport 830 000 bbl/d of oil to Gulf Coast and Midwest refineries, potentially reducing American dependence on oil from Venezuela and the Middle East by up to 40%.