RE:RE:RE:Question for those who have worked with pipelines...
Response to Reddeer: Do you remember the original question? "What are the implications if the flow of oil in hundreds of miles of pipeline is halted and temperatures dip to -30C or below? How hard is it to restart the flow if oil in the pipes drops to very low temp?
Honest quesion... I have no clue. Would they need to empty the line before halting?
Decommissionning is one thing...the question was about HALTING the flow for a period of time. The operation your link describes is taking out of service for good...including segmentation.
Anyway the whole exercize is pointless. NOBODY ever talked about HALTING exports. In reality a retaliation involving oil would be to impose and export tax on it....the feds would collect it at the border, the oil would be more expensive in the US and the feds would reimburse the tax back to the producers. The very same mechanism was employed in the 1980s when softwood lumber were first introduced by the US. Lumber from Canada became more expensive in the US, just like the US lumber barons wanted, Canadian producers were not affected.
Lots of comparisons between oil and lumber in this context. In both cases the US produces some but not enough to meet total demand....both US industries want higher prices/profits....Canada just happens to be "meat in the sandwich" in both cases.