Representatives of Canadian energy giant TransCanada were in Harlan Monday for an open house to talk about a proposed pipeline that may pass through Iowa. Brian Peterson is the project manager for the so-called “Keystone Pipeline.”
The pipeline would move approximately 435-thousand barrels of oil a day from oil fields in Canada to refineries in the United States. Peterson says the pipeline would stretch from oil fields near Hardisty, Alberta, to refineries in at Patoka, Illinois. The project has a total estimated cost of one-point-nine-billion-dollars to build.
The pipeline would cover 17-hundred miles, including one-thousand miles crossing five states in the U.S. Peterson says the entire pipeline would be buried four feet underground. Peterson says the only visible evidence of the pipeline will be pumping stations placed every 50-to-60 miles along the route.
Construction is tentatively scheduled to start in the spring of 2008, with the pipeline becoming operational late in 2009. The proposed route would have the pipeline enter Iowa near Sioux City and then angle south and east, exiting into Missouri in the south-central part of Iowa. However, within the last week, TransCanada announced an alternate route that would bypass Iowa altogether.
Known as “Option B,” that proposal would instead send the pipeline through eastern Nebraska, into Kansas, and then east to Illinois. Company officials say they will decide on which route to use within the next two or three months. Open houses similar to the one held in Harlan will be held tonight (Tuesday) in Creston, and next week in Anthon and Akron.