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Briefing

Investor Briefing: The many obstacles facing Keystone XL

This ninth annual fossil fuel finance report card grades banks on their policy commitments regarding extreme fossil fuel financing and calculates their financing for these fuels from 2015 to 2017. The report also assesses the shortcomings of the Equator Principles for ensuring banks respect human rights, and Indigenous rights in particular.

This briefing outlines compelling reasons for investors to question whether TransCanada should proceed with Keystone XL given various obstacles facing its construction and commercially viable operation, and suggests questions institutional financiers may wish to ask TransCanada.

Published by: Oil Change International (600.99 KB)

Investor Briefing: Problematic Pipelines: The many obstacles facing Keystone XL

Oil Change International, Greenpeace, Bold Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, Natural Resources Defense Council

February 2018

Download the full investor briefing.

There are compelling reasons for an investor to question whether TransCanada should proceed with Keystone XL in the midst of federal and state legal challenges to permits, and escalating Indigenous and landowner opposition; in the absence of a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the newly approved alternative pipeline route; and given the potentially changed  political landscape in 2020.

This briefing outlines various obstacles facing the construction and commercially viable operation of Keystone XL. We suggest questions institutional financiers may wish to ask TransCanada.

Major risks to Keystone XL:

2014 federal Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement does not cover new approved route;

Legal challenge to the validity of Nebraska PSC decision and upcoming PSC elections;

Over 100 landowners in Nebraska refusing to sign over their land;

Federal legal challenge to federal cross-border permit;

Escalating Indigenous and landowner opposition;

Commercial viability.

Click here to download the investor briefing here.

In October 2017, Oil Change International and Greenpeace released an in-depth report that outlined the financial and reputational risks related to three tar sands pipelines, including Keystone XL.