Canadian union appeals NEB approval of Keystone XL pipeline

TORONTO - The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada is charging that approval by Canada’s National Energy Board of the Keystone XL pipeline will result in tens of thousands of Canadian jobs being exported to Texas. The energy union filed leave to appeal the decision on April 9.
"The oil and gas industry has decided that the enormous economic development associated with upgrading and refining oil sands resources will take place in Texas, not Canada," said Dave Coles, president of the union.
The Keystone XL pipeline construction project will export 900,000 barrels of oil per day to the U.S. Gulf Coast - most of it unprocessed bitumen from the Alberta oil sands.
"This means the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the Canadian oil upgrading and refining sector that either exist now, or that would have been created by projects that are likely to be canceled as a result of the dramatic expansion of oil export pipeline capacity to upgraders and refineries in the U.S.," Coles charged.
Keystone XL was opposed by CEP, the Alberta Federation of Labor, the Sierra Club as well as by Enbridge, Imperial Oil, BP and Nexen.
The companies argued that Keystone XL will create enormous excess export capacity, raise service costs on other pipelines and increase input costs to Canadian refineries by US$600 million in 2013.
"Not only will this project abandon the enormous opportunity of creating a diversified Canadian oil and gas industry," said Coles, "but it will seriously undermine the viability of existing refineries. Astonishingly, the NEB has signed off on the industry's plan as being the Canadian public interest. The Board has abandoned its mandate to the entirely ill-founded notion that a deregulated export market is in the Canadian public interest."
The legal argument filed by CEP alleges that the NEB made several fundamental errors of law, and failed to properly exercise its mandate to protect the Canadian public interest.
The National Energy Board approved the Keystone XL pipeline project on March 11, subject to the federal government giving it the final green light. CEP filed its appeal on April 9.

Wilbros denies picketers’ claims that it’s paying substandard wages on pipeline construction jobs

JACKSONVILLE, Texas – Wilbros began work in March on a 143-mile Energy Transfer Partners’ natural gas pipeline that passes through northern Cherokee County on its way to Minden, Texas, from Maypearl, Texas.
Officials with Willbros Group, the construction company building the pipeline, have said they will employ as many as 1,200 workers at its peak.
At least two union groups have been picketing Willbros Group’s local headquarters in protest of the company’s hiring practices.
“We’ve been picketed at several locations over the years,” said Harry New, Wilbros project director for the natural gas pipeline.
New said some of the reasons the Texas picket line formed aren’t true –specifically, allegations concerning the company’s employment pools and pay scales.
“All the people we hire are legal to work in the U.S.,” New said. “We’ve also implemented a 401K and offer benefits. It’s up to the employee to elect to take advantage of them.”

U.S. steelworkers protest use of India-made pipe in Keystone project

GRANITE CITY, Ill. - Hundreds of steelworkers have protested in Illinois against the use of India-made steel in TransCanada’s Keystone oil pipeline project designed to connect Canada’s oil sands with the U.S. Midwest. The protesters demanded adoption of a “Buy American” policy by authorities.
Most such protests in the recent past have targeted steel pipe made in China. The Illinois protest was the first against pipe made in India.
The rally, which took place in Granite City, Ill., was organized by the United Steel Workers (USW) union. It attracted some 1,000 protesters in spite of near-freezing temperatures.
The slogan-shouting protesters demanded that the "Made in India" pipe be replaced with pipe manufactured in the U.S.
Organizers said the pipe made in India, destined for use in the Keystone Pipeline being built by TransCanada from the oil fields of Alberta in Canada to the Conoco-Phillips refinery in Illinois, are being unloaded from rail cars and transferred to tractor trailers at a time when some 2,000 workers at USS Steel are laid off from the adjacent steel mill.
The rally called for an end to the public policy of the past 30 years, which they alleged has led to the willful dismantling of the industrial and manufacturing base of the American economy and the loss of millions of decent, middle-class supporting jobs.
Participants at the rally demanded a new policy that emphasizes the development of new energy technologies and investment in the U.S. economy's infrastructure utilizing American-made manufactured products.
Robert Jones, the Keystone Pipeline project's vice president, said that when TransCanada solicited bids for the pipe in 2007, "it became pretty apparent that North American pipe mills weren't going to be able to fulfill our needs" because many were at capacity. Complicating matters, he said, was that only a certain number of pipe suppliers worldwide could make the high-tensile pipe required for the project.
So TransCanada contracted for about half of the pipe to come from U.S. and Canadian sources, with the rest from overseas, Jones said.