This CBC article discusses how the American environmental movement dealt a blow to Alberta’s oilpatch. Activists identified perfect target: Keystone XL pipeline, and they think it worked.
The strategy to stifle Alberta’s oilsands came together in a hotel near a mall in Minneapolis over a decade ago.
It was the fall of 2008, and a group of environmental activists spent part of a conference there brainstorming tactics for slowing down the growth of the oilsands — and they identified pipelines as the most vulnerable target.
One in particular fit the bill: Keystone XL — a 1,897-kilometre pipeline to be built by TC Energy that would carry up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Hardisty, Alta., to Nebraska, where it would link up with the company’s existing pipeline network.
Their fateful decision at that meeting to throw money and organizational effort into attacking the proposed pipeline opened a difficult new chapter for the oilpatch.