Trump says he’d approve pipeline — for a price
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would approve TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, but he wants a “better deal.”
“I want the Keystone pipeline, but the people of the United States should be given a piece, a significant piece of the profits,” Trump said at a press conference in North Dakota. President Barack Obama rejected the pipeline in November, saying the project to connect Canadian oilsands with refiners in the U.S. Gulf Coast wasn’t in the national interest.
Trump is giving his first major speech on energy issues to a crowd of more than 7,000 people, including thousands of oil- and gas-sector workers and officials, at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck.
In choosing North Dakota as the stage for his remarks, Trump is making an appeal to voters in a largely Republican state that has seen its fortunes plummet with the price of oil in the last two years. Trump said he supports all forms of energy and wants the U.S. to be energy independent.
“The federal government is in the way” of energy development, Trump told reporters before the speech. The Obama administration “put the coal miners out of business, the coal mines are shut.”
While energy industry officials and politicians in North Dakota this week say they’re optimistic about the future as oil prices edge higher, the reality for the state is stark. North Dakota had a record 1,523 inactive oil wells at the end of March, the latest date available, according to the state’s Department of Mineral Resources.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, rose above US$50 barrel for the first time since October on the New York Mercantile Exchange, amid signs of a tightening market.
“America needs a businessman, not a bureaucrat,” Harold Hamm, the billionaire chief executive of Continental Resources Inc., said in a statement Wednesday. “Donald Trump cares about jobs and the economy.”
TransCanada stopped short of addressing Trump’s comments on profit-sharing, but noted KXL already provides lots of benefits to the U.S.
“Key American companies are customers on KXL,” said spokesman James Millar. “The pipeline will benefit American workers longer term as the companies they work for have signed contracts to ship and refine oil through Keystone XL. And this is not counting the 40,000 jobs construction of KXL would support, the U.S. suppliers who would benefit from an $8- billion project, or the tens of millions of dollars in property taxes TransCanada would pay to states along the pipeline’s route if it is built.
“We believe Americans would rather use U.S. and Canadian oil through Keystone XL than continue the current practice of importing millions of barrels of oil every day from Venezuela and the Middle East.”
I want the Keystone pipeline, but the people of the United States should be given a piece, a significant piece of the profits.