Insight

10 States Poised to Welcome Keystone XL Crude

If built, the Keystone XL pipeline could carry about 700,000 barrels per day of a reliable, inexpensive, carbon-rich form of oil, known as diluted bitumen.   AAF identified which states are likely to benefit most from increased trade in this form of crude.

Bitumen is just one form of unconventional petroleum playing a big part in the recent energy boom. Canada has enormous resources, with more than 2.2 trillion barrels of bitumen deposits in Alberta and Saskatchewan. With a viscous, molasses-like consistency, bitumen has a very high useful carbon content, and is processed at refineries just like typical sources of crude oil.

To determine which states will benefit the most from increasing bitumen trade through Keystone XL, AAF used past data provided through the Energy Information Administration’s U.S. Crude Oil Import Tracking Tool.[1]

Since 2009, American oil imports from Canada have increased about 61 percent, to more than 3.1 million barrels per day. The vast majority of that increase comes in the form of new bitumen imports, which nearly doubled over the period to 2.0 million barrels per day. 

Those bitumen imports were not equally distributed across all states. Refineries in Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Kansas, and Oklahoma consumed 70 percent of all Canadian bitumen imports in 2013. Illinois alone consumed more than one third.

Top Users of Imported Canadian Bitumen, 2013

Rank

 

Consumption

(Thousand Barrels Per Day)

U.S. Total

1520.1

 

 

 

1

Illinois

523.0

2

Minnesota

259.3

3

Montana

120.2

4

Kansas

94.5

5

Oklahoma

71.8

6

Michigan

69.2

7

Ohio

57.6

8

Texas

55.2

9

Indiana

48.7

10

Louisiana

44.8

Source: Energy Information Administration

The development of bitumen and other heavier, carbon-rich forms of crude oil in Canada has generated a reliable and inexpensive oil supply for American consumers, particularly in the Midwest. Construction of Keystone XL would provide safe and reliable access to up to 700,000 additional barrels per day of these resources while creating jobs and opportunity and reducing impacts to the environment and public safety.



[1] The EIA Tracking Tool allows users to access data by grade. Bitumen is a type of heavy, sour crude oil, and so we use these numbers in our analysis. 

Disclaimer