Ah, the sweet relief of falling gas prices. It feels so good.

Would less dependency on foreign oil be good, too? A pipeline currently being laid through DeKalb County may do just that.

The Southern Access Pipeline Project, headed up by Enbridge Incorporated, a Canadian company, entails laying a pipeline through northern Illinois.

“The pipeline is designed to transport crude oil from western Canada to refineries in Chicago,” said Dave Henderson, Enbridge, Inc. community relations consultant. “Enbridge is like a trucking company: We build pipelines in order to transport crude oil and then operate them after
construction is complete.”

In order to gain approval for the project, Enbridge works with the DeKalb County Farm Bureau Office as well as the Illinois Department of Agriculture since most of the pipeline being laid is through farm fields.

Short term benefits to local establishments are a plus to DeKalb County.

“We have about 500 highly-paid construction workers on this spread with at least 50 percent local workers employed,” Henderson said. “Hotel rooms, restaurants, gas stations, etc. help the local economy as well.”

But will the presence of the pipeline decrease gas prices?

“There’s no one factor that will ensure lower fuel prices, but if you increase supply and the demand stays the same, [increased supply] serves as a damper [to higher gas prices],” Henderson said.

Cheaper fuel may sound great after this summer’s high gas prices, but associate economics professor Stephen Karlsonwonders about the future.

“If you have cheaper fuels, it takes away some of the incentive to pursue other transportation technology,” Karlson said.

In July 2008, the U.S. imported 51,929,000 barrels from Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.’s total imports were 404,983,000, meaning about 12 percent of imports came from Saudi Arabia alone, according to the Energy Information Association’s Web site.

“Canada is second only to Saudi Arabia in crude oil reserves,” Henderson said.

He went on to explain U.S. refineries view Canadian crude oil as a more secure and reliable source than oil from the Middle East countries. With the increased demand, the Southern Access Pipeline Project is intended to help replace traditional sources of crude oil with a more reliable provider by increasing Canadian-supplied crude oil.

The project is a step in the right direction. Decrease dependency on Middle East countries for crude oil and pursue alternative fuel sources.

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