The pieces are in place
By Chris Dunker
Daily Sun staff writer
Tuesday, Jul 14, 2009
On its way from Alberta, Canada to Pavoka, Ill., the Keystone Pipeline, being constructed and operated by the TransCanada Corporation, will soon be passing through the region near Steele City.
Keystone Pipeline is a $5.2 billion project that will ultimately flow oil from Alberta to refineries in Illinois. Despite a tropical June, contractors are pushing to finish the job through Nebraska in 2009.
That oil, from a domestic source, is also helping create local Nebraska jobs in the struggling economy.
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Keystone spokesman Jeff Rauh said the Nebraska-based crew, headquartered in Lincoln, is in the process of heading south into Saline County and Jefferson County in the upcoming weeks.
“At this point, we’ve got the leading crews who are installing temporary gates and fences and doing some clearing of trees and brush,” Rauh said.
The crew has finished it’s work in Nebraska and is now working in Marshall County, Kan.
The Lincoln crew consists of approximately 500 workers, all working with different parts of the pipeline.
Overall, the project is broken into several pieces with crews based in Yankton, S.D., and Hiawatha, Kan., in addition to the Nebraska crew.
While crews are currently in the process of laying pipe north of the area near Interstate 80 and pipe is being welded together in southern Butler County, Rauh said grading crews will soon begin taking off the top layers of soil through Saline and Jefferson counties.
“The grading crew is in northern Saline County right now,” Rauh said. “Behind them, a couple of crews are digging ditches.”
“I think Jefferson County will start to see activity shortly within the next week to two weeks,” Rauh said. “It may be two to three weeks before the grading makes it down to northern Jefferson County.”
Once grading is completed, the ditch digging crew will come through a week later, Rauh said. Earlier summer rains had slowed progress somewhat, but recent dry weather has allowed the pace to quicken.
“When the grading is done, it will be another week before ditching and another week before stringing,” Rauh said. “Despite the wet weather early on this summer, we’ve been making good progress and we are very pleased with the nice dry weather of the last week that has allowed us to make up for the lost time early on.”
With the main crews being situated north of the area, a storage yard in Jansen has filled with oil pipes over the past few weeks.
The pipes, 30 inches in diameter and 80 feet long, arrived by train. Workers from T.G. Mercer, a company contracted by Keystone, have worked to stack the pipes three high and hundreds across to make them available when crews reach the area.
The amount of workers in the area is bound to make an impact economically, Rauh said.
“With a crew of 500 based out of Lincoln, some of these folks are traveling every day, but others are staying closer,” Rauh said.
Rauh said workers may be staying in hotels, eating at restaurants or stopping at convenience stores - all of which stimulates the local economy.
“It certainly is a significant, temporary workforce in the local area,” Rauh added.
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