THE NORTHERN TIER

Audubon, Sierra & Co had a better idea than the Alaskan pipeline: Pump the oil to the Midwest via the "Canadian pipeline," an entirely fictitious facility concocted entirely by non-Canadian heads. (The present nationalistic mood of the Canadian government is ugly; but how pretty was it when US environmentalists discussed the "Canadian pipeline" like a Belgian viceroy might have discussed, decades ago, a pipeline through the Congo?).

Since then, Canada has adopted a policy of self-sufficiency which has some droll aspects, such as fighting the provincial government of Alberta, not for looting the oil producers in Calgary, but for not sharing the loot with the federal government in Ottawa. Less amusing is the policy of exporting oil to the US: As of last January, this must not exceed 510,000 b/d, an amount which is shortly to be reduced to 385,000 b/d, and within 5 years, this is to be reduced to nothing at all. Exports of natural gas to the US are to be similarly curtailed. All of which is highly beneficial for self-sufficiency, mainly Saudi Arabia's.

It will be less beneficial for the US refineries which depend on Canadian oil for consumers in Montana, the Dakotas, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Enter the Northern Tier Pipeline Co, a Montana corporation formed by seven energy and transportation companies (none of them major). It hopes to build a crude oil pipeline from Port Angeles, Wash., to Clearbrook, Minn. length 1500 miles; capacity 1.3 million b/d (from Port Angeles to North Bend, Wash., where refiners will tap 500,000 b/d and pass on the rest in the flow toward Minnesota); cost $1 billion; common carrier open to any shipper of crude oil. The pipeline would fill the urgent need of replacing Canadian oil by oil from the North Slope; there would also be additional benefits, such as access to a strategic oil storage area in North Dakota.

The pipeline is likely to remain in the news for some time; among other things, it will be a lucrative target for the sham-environmentalists, who have had little to their debit since they did the Kaiparowits project in. [More: Write Northern Tier Pipeline Co., 404 N. 31st, Billings, MT 59101.]