Controversial Keystone XL Pipeline Officially Canceled

June 14, 2021

The company behind the Keystone XL Pipeline has officially pulled the plug on the controversial project.

The 1,200-mile pipeline, which would have stretched from Alberta’s boreal forests to the refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast, became the center of a larger controversy over climate change, pipeline safety, eminent domain and jobs.

Construction on the project was first stopped earlier this year after President Biden revoked the pipeline's U.S. permit, which was approved by his predecessor Donald Trump in 2017.

TC Energy, the Canadian-based company that developed the pipeline, confirmed the termination in a statement released on June 9.

In addition to opposition from environmentalists and climate experts, the pipeline also drew criticism from farmers, ranchers and Indigenous leaders who did not want to be forced to grant the company rights of way, and who feared the pipeline might one day leak and contaminate water supplies in the giant Ogallala Aquifer.

The Keystone XL was designed to carry more than 830,000 barrels a day of crude oil, virtually all of it coming 1,210 miles from the tar sands to Steele City, Neb. A southern leg from Cushing, Okla., to the Gulf Coast was approved in 2012 and was constructed and is functioning. Most of the northern leg also has been completed, with some of the most important gaps in Nebraska.

Controversial Keystone XL Pipeline Officially Canceled

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