“I have always advocated for the Keystone XL pipeline,” Trudeau said. “We will continue to work with whatever government gets elected in the United States to impress upon them how important Canada is as a secure and reliable supply of energy that they require even as we move forward to a new future.”
The prime minister’s comments come one day after former US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he will rescind the Keystone XL pipeline permit if he is elected US president in the upcoming election.
In April, a US federal judge cancelled a US Army Corps of Engineers permit related to the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline due to environmental compliance infractions.
Keystone is an oil pipeline system that moves Alberta crude oil from the Canadian town of Hardisty to refineries and tank farms in the US states of Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas. The first three phases of the system are currently operational, however, the construction of the fourth phase, better known as Keystone XL, which is planned to transport oil to Nebraska, has caused a major uproar on both sides of the border.
The proposed section of the pipeline, twice rejected by the Obama administration, but backed by the incumbent US President Donald Trump, is planned to originate in Hardisty, pass through Baker, Montana where US-produced oil from the Bakken Formation would be added to it, and eventually terminate in Steele City, Nebraska from where it would be redistributed to other refineries and tank farms.
The Keystone XL pipeline consists of 1,209 miles of new 36-inch-diameter pipeline, 327 miles of pipeline in Canada and 882 miles in the United States from the Saskatchewan border through Montana and South Dakota to a terminal in Steele City, Nebraska.