As an old newspaper reporter, I acknowledge my prejudice against television news with its "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality.
TV is great for showing floods, fires, and terrorist attacks. I once saw a TV cameraman at the site of an auto accident give the wheel of an overturned car a spin by hand and then film it to impart a sense of immediacy to his coverage of the wreck. But without lurid bits of film, TV news is terrible at reporting subjects such as economics, and it has reduced debate of complicated political issues to simple sound-bites.
I long ago gave up watching TV news. But now that I work from home, I often hear the news reports and talk shows less-picky family members are watching in the next room as I'm filing reports on the energy market. And what sticks out like a sore thumb is the lack of US TV coverage of the economic crisis that is shaking Europe. European economies teeter, governments fall, all with major lessons for and potential damage to our own government and economy. Yet US residents who rely on TV for news hear practically nothing about it.
Keystone XL delayed
Even a major backyard event such as the administration's recent decision to postpone past next year's presidential election any action on the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry crude from Alberta to Texas got little mention on TV or even in general print media in this country.
Analysts in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc. described it best: "It is often said that America acts while Europe dithers. Recent events are proving the opposite," they said. "After the leaders of Germany and France decided that Greece needs a new government, it took less than a week…. By contrast, the White House is pushing out its decision on the Keystone XL pipeline until after the 2012 election. To recap: one week to remove the elected leader of a G-7 country, and several years to make a decision on a pipeline. You can decide who's got their act together."
After throwing money at now-bankrupt alternative energy companies in pretense of reducing US dependence on unfriendly foreign oil suppliers, the US government apparently torpedoed a private project that would increase oil supplies from the biggest, friendliest source outside our own borders.
At KBC Energy Economics, a division of KBC Advanced Technologies PLC, analysts said, "The US move to put off a decision on TransCanada Corp.'s proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline for 18 months is a significant blow for Ottawa, which had strongly backed the project, and its future is now uncertain. Canada currently exports about 2 million b/d of oil, almost all of it to the US. The Keystone project is one of two that oil sands producers have been counting on to deliver oil from Alberta's oil sands to markets other than the oversupplied US Midwest."
KBC analysts reported, "At this stage, it is uncertain who the main beneficiary of the US decision to delay the project will be, but there is certainly the possibility that Ottawa will focus its efforts on marketing its oil in Asia, denying yet another source of supply to Europe and the US."
Raymond James analysts said, "Given that TransCanada has supply contracts for volume commitments due to expire in 2012 and 2013, the delay could mean the end of XL."
They also pointed out, "There are several projects under way that would undercut XL, including Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway project and the proposed Wrangler pipeline—a possible JV between Enbridge and Enterprise Products Partners LP. Further, with the recent completion of the Bakken Oil Express and several other rail projects under way, the delay could be a boon for the North American railroad industry. In short, we expect more Canadian crude to move east and the Cushing, Okla., glut, which is driving the Brent-West Texas Intermediate disconnect, to persist."
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