Keystone builder tells landowners it is still committed to pipeline

The company developing the Keystone XL oil pipeline told Nebraska residents in its path that it is still confident the pipeline is necessary.

Corey Goulet, who is overseeing the pipeline’s development for TransCanada Corp., said that despite various possible threats to Keystone and historically low gas prices, it is needed now more than ever.

{mosads}“And, in reality, that’s a pretty easy decision in most people’s minds,” Goulet said of the decision to build the pipeline, according to the Norfolk Daily News.

Goulet visited Nebraska last week to answer questions about the planned pipeline that would cross through northeastern and north-central Nebraska on its way from Canada’s oil sands to the United States’s Gulf Coast.

The visit was prompted by letters TransCanada sent this month to landowners in the pipeline’s path who have not agreed to an easement, the Daily News said.

The letters said that, under Nebraska’s law setting Keystone’s route, the company may start the process next month of taking the land by eminent domain.

Andrew Craig, the company’s land manager, said about 84 percent of Nebraska landowners have agreed to the easements.

But he also sought to reassure landowners that the company would continue to work with them on voluntary easements, even after it initiates the eminent domain proceedings, according to the Daily News.

Another complicating matter is that Nebraska’s law about the route has been challenged in the Nebraska Supreme Court, causing a delay in the State Department’s consideration of Keystone’s federal permit.