The District Court of Montana (United States) has cancelled a nationwide permit issued by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 2017 and allowing the Keystone XL Pipeline project - and other pipeline projects - to cross water bodies. Though TC Energy, the developer of the US$8bn pipeline project, will be able to continue construction works at the Canada-US border, it will need the permit for most of the pipeline route. This is a new hurdle to the project, whose construction was due to start in early April 2020 after more than a decade of opposition from landowners, environmental groups and first nations.
The Keystone XL Pipeline will transport 830,000 bbl/d of Alberta oil sands (Canada) through Steele City in Nebraska (United States) to the Mexico Gulf coast refiners over an 1,897 km route. TC Energy planned to start the construction of a 2 km segment crossing the US-Canada border in April 2020. The company would then build pumping stations along the pipeline route as of June 2020, along with a pipeline segment in Nebraska, before starting to build segments in Montana and South Dakota in August 2020. Work would continue in 2021 and the pipeline was expected to be commissioned in 2023.