Slashdot Mirror
Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Keystone XL pipeline controversy is finally coming to a close. On Friday, President Obama denied a construction permit for the pipeline, ending a seven-year political fight. Obama said, "America's now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change. And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership. And that's the biggest risk we face — not acting." Secretary of State John Kerry added, "The reality is that this decision could not be made solely on the numbers — jobs that would be created, dirty fuel that would be transported here, or carbon pollution that would ultimately be unleashed. The United States cannot ask other nations to make tough choices to address climate change if we are unwilling to make them ourselves." The decision comes as no surprise to the oil industry, and they've been busily working on other ways to transport the oil. "U.S. imports of oil from Canada hit a record high of 3.4 million barrels a day in August, up from just under 2 million barrels a day in 2008, the year the pipeline was proposed."
So now the oil will be transported by truck and rail, which of course pollutes much, much less than sending it through a pipe via electric pumps.
is obama and his administration fucking retarded? did he flunk basic math and science?
for the oil trains.
Have gnu, will travel.
Obama denys the permit a few days after transcanada requests to table the permit process (due to falling oil prices) and everyone cheers.
It's notable that Obama is making a political calculation (wanting to retain "leadership" relating to climate change, the pipeline not increasing "energy security") rather than an economic or environmental one.
Reading his statement on the matter, his economic justifications are irrelevant ("the pipeline wouldn't create jobs or lower gas prices for Americans"): since it's not proposed that the US government pay for the pipeline, these issues are only relevant against costs -- and he doesn't discuss any costs! He isn't citing the direct environmental damage of digging the pipeline and creating associated infrastructure (roads, power cables, pumping stations etc). He isn't citing the risk of leaks.
I was wondering if Obama would claim climate risks since that would have required him to quantify his estimate of the accuracy of the models used to predict the climate effects of the pipeline. But naturally he didn't claim risks to the climate -- only risks to US leadership on climate issues. That's a fair reason to make national-level decisions, but is not a win for the environment.
It will probably be approved in the summer of 2017.
The Keystone XL pipeline controversy is finally coming to a close.
Hahhahahahahaha, good one!
Is the technology required to build an oil refinery beyond the societal abilities of Canada? Do they really need to freeride off the USA even more than they already do?
Is it too much to ask that TransCanada build a Canadian pipeline transversing Canada to their own Canadian refinery, thereby securing all the supposed economic benefits for their own country?
Fuck Canada!
Nature already polluted all of this sand with oil. All the oil companies are doing is removing the oil leaving nice clean sand behind.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Personally, considering that the price of oil is in a slump because the terrorists, I mean, the bankers needed a "bailout" (poor things); I think it is just a half assed way to prop up the price, if even only by a little. I'm glad. Forcing the pipe down the throats of landowners was a move that would have caused me to kill tresspassers. Fuck that pipeline and especially FUCK OBAMA.
This should come as no surprise. A few days ago, TransCanada requested a delay in approval because the low price of oil has made the pipeline construction less appealing. This reduced opposition to, and so political cost of, Obama's decision.
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
You do know the keystone pipeline would raise the cost of oil and lessen the supply to the industries you quote right?
What the lobbyists who produce this information and fancy commercials and radio talk shows don't tell you is where this oil is going?
It is not going to you. It is going to cars in China who are used to paying $9 a gallon for gas. If all of North America's gas could be sold for %300 why would they sell it to you, or fertilizer, plastic, electrical, or medical companies? Unless you want to pay $7 a gallon for gas of course.
This is why Obama vetoed it. We have all the liability of a potential accident with less product.
http://saveie6.com/
What about the concerns that a for profit, foreign company was proposing to use eminent domain to acquire the pipeline right-of-way? I don't think that got the press it deserved and was not a precedent we wanted to set as a country.
So they will continue to send 5000 trucks a day, nice move.
"The decision comes as no surprise to the oil industry, and they've been busily working on other ways to transport the oil."
Like, for instance, the railroad that Obama's 1%'er buddy Warren Buffett owns. I'm sure there's no connection there, though.
Oh, and is it cleaner to transport by rail?
http://bigstory.ap.org/article...
Nope.
And is it going to cut carbon emissions? Are we pretending that Canada's just going to leave it in the ground if we don't buy it?
Do you have ESP?
got news for you. If we stop burning oil, our demand will be at about 1/3 of the current level.
And we import about 1/4. IOW, if we can cut our oil based vehicles in half, we will not import a single drop of oil
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And it hasn't even been one week since the election. Well, I for one welcome our new Canadian overlords.
But on a more serious note, we all know the real reason why this pipeline was rejected. And its name is Berkshire Hathaway.
You can stop with the high drama. This is business, and nothing but. Simple short term cost/benefit ratios are all that is considered. They didn't like the numbers, so they pulled the plug.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The just flat our refuse all evidence, even with the worst case scenarios accidents at Chernobyl and Fukashima, the millions of lives saved by using nuclear power. And this is with the handicap their efforts have wrought by preventing the adoption of new designs and technology to the point where we are planning on running reactors until they are 80 years old. Imagine if we were on 6th or 7th generation reactors? Imagine if we were allowed to use breeder reactors? Nobody would be talking about using fossil fuels for electricity production.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
well, I can see you are another idiot that is lying to yourself as well as others.
Too bad that we do not teach logic in our schools. Had we done so, it might have made up for your total lack of intelligence.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A couple actual facts, and yes, to begin, this has nothing to do with the environment. Over the past few years US crude productions has risen sharply and imports have fallen dramatically. This has caused the price of crude to fall to level where exploration cannot be supported. All the oil companies are cutting back on exploration, some are exiting all together selling their leases. Politics, for instance, had nothing to do with shell pulling out of the arctic. It was that the arctic is still very expensive, and at $40 a barrel, no one is making money. Second, the pipeline is a conservative nightmare on many levels. Primarily it requires the US federal governement to take land from US citizens and give it to a foreign corporations. Many citizen land owners in Texas and other very conservative states have sued for their right to keep their land and not have it annexed to a foreign country, but the conservative courts have said that the landowners do not have the right. Finally there is the simple matter of production. The US has enough crude to refine. The pipeline made some sense when oil was high as there was going to be money to be made so investing in infrastructure made sense. Now, again, with crude at 40, there is no money to be made. However there is money to be lost. Oil refining has a lot of external costs in terms of health care costs, falling property values around the refinery, and yes, environmental destruction. The Canadians know this which is why they are outsourcing refining to their hick neighbors to the south instead of building infrastructure themselves and reaping the rewards of the alleged profit that comes with it.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Well I mean you don't want to stop CO2 emissions. If you let it go too low all life dies. In fact the industrial revolution probably saved the planet from mass extinction. The pre-industrial level was 280 ppm but the lowest it was during a recent glaciation at 180 ppm. It looks like with the Earth cooling volcanic activity is decreasing which releases less CO2. Crop plants start dying at around 150 ppm and really thrive at 2000 ppm which is why greenhouses use CO2 generators because the plants will use up the CO2 quickly. Luckily, humans came along and started burning fossil fuels so prevent the next ice age.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
"The only winner is Venezuela"
I wanted Keystone XL approved just to fuck with Maduro.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
The project has already been stalled and deprioritised due to low oil prices, so Obama's advisers calculated that the economic pain of rejecting it now won't cause them too much trouble. They don't have to pretend to be still reviewing it while actually simply stonewalling it until it dies. A benefit is that they get to preach about the environment, even as oil gets transported by rail and truck instead, which of course generates a lot more carbon. But hey, at least Berkshire Hathaway owns the rail lines and is an ally of the Democrats.
Fortunately, Obama is a lame duck, and his corrupt, incompetent, and generally malfeasant administration will soon be ejected from DC.
I think a lot of you are missing why this is important. Keystone xl was supposed to deliver millions of barrel per day when here, in Canada, all of trains are delivering about 150k barrel day, even if the amount of transportation by train was multiply more then 10 times in the last 5 years and is currently near the limite of our rail... Trains and trucks cannot transport oil on the same scale as a pipeline! Thats why rejecting Keystone xl is a good move for the environment, ultimately, it will limite the net amount of tar sand that is extraction. Source https://ricochet.media/en/732/...
The medical industry too would cease to exist as we know it today.
If only.
There's no issue here. Keystone was just a way for Canada to get it's oil to China cheaply. There's no benefit besides a few hundred jobs. OTOH there's a strong likelihood that sooner or later the pipeline will burst and spew oil everywhere for days. We here in America don't have the best track record of making oil companies clean up their messes....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Too bad that we do not teach logic in our schools.
If they did that, politics would have to actually make sense. There's far too much invested in never allowing that to happen.
I'd recommend The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi. It's an introductory book about logic and critical thinking, written (for educational purposes) from the point of view of someone trying to intentionally deceive an audience.
Wow - watch fox news much?
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
You do know the keystone pipeline would raise the cost of oil and lessen the supply to the industries you quote right?
You do realize that oil is a global commodity and there are literally hundreds of sources for it around the world, and that one country buying from Canada will not affect the prices for other countries unilaterally?
It is going to cars in China who are used to paying $9 a gallon for gas.
You are an idiot. Gas in China is about $4/gallon. It's about the same price it's been for the last few years.
This is why Obama vetoed it. We have all the liability of a potential accident with less product.
President Obama vetoed it probably as a sop to the extreme environmental lobby, which overwhelmingly supports the Democrats. With the 2016 elections coming up, no President wants to see his "legacy" (and his is extremely thin as is) tarnished with big losses of the White House, House, and Senate because of an action he took which upset one of his core constituencies. This is about his legacy, nothing about liability and product availability. If he was worried about liability then he would have signed the bill as pipelines are safer than rail and truck.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
And the price of oil really won't change. If anything, it would probably increase as production costs in the US are higher than most of the rest of the world. But Canada, Venezuela and Mexico will be sad as we would no longer import the majority of our oil from those countries...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Because trucks, rail cars and ships are sooo much less risky. BZZZZT!!!
Organization? You must be joking..
When America quits importing oil from the world market, that drives down the demand, which with the current supply on the world market, with more coming, it would drive down prices. This is called the laws of supply and demand. .07/kwh, it would require oil to drop to less than 20/brl to equal that. IOW, electricity is DIRT cheap, compared to oil.
Secondly, the prices of oil in America are actually QUITE low. If you compare brent (roughly international) with WTI (west texas with better grade oil compared to brent), you will find that WTI is 10/brl LESS. Why less? Because our costs are pretty darn low as well as our supply is greater than our demand.
Now, if America quits importing oil, then you can bet that global prices will plummet even further. And with average nighttime electricity prices in America at
And If America is moving quickly to much lower costs electricity and nat gas on our vehicles, china will go ballistic and work hard to drop their imports of oil.
IOW, by focusing on our burning of oil, rather than one location of where it comes from, the dems COULD have caused the world wide drop of CO2 over the next 5 years. This is why dems are SOOO foolish.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Seriously, I'm asking. I've generally heard much, much lower numbers (in the hundreds best case). There'd be a flurry of jobs while the pipeline was build, but after that nothing. Now, if we made them _lease_ the land for a hefty sum of the profits plus make them buy lots and lots of insurance for the spills...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I'm hesitant to reply to a troll, but here goes.
> we'd STILL need about 50% of existing demand just to continue the rest of our lives like we do now.
I'm curious where you got this figure from. Let me check your rectum.
> No modern electronics at all. No plastics. No fertilizers on a global scale. Far fewer pesticides, none that actually work. The medical industry too would cease to exist as we know it today.
Nonsense. We already know how to synthetically produce petroleum-like substances. These things would just get a bit more expensive, that's all.
The only reason the petrochemical industry is as large as it is, is because of the glut of cheap oil available during the 20th century when the industry was expanding. If there's a lot of something, people are going to find ways of using it. In a lot of cases the pathway from petroleum to a useful product is actually really complex and only makes sense if petroleum is cheap. If not, there are other, cheaper ways.
> Thats right, without oil you wouldn't be able to eat, get medicine or talk on the phone. No Internet.
Yeah, it's common knowledge that eating was invented in the 20th century.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Poe's law?
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
If refineries in the US start talking larger deliveries of Canadian crude, and the product of that refinement is going to be exported, then yes it can increase oil prices in the US because it represents a loss of refinement capacity dedicated to the US market. Refineries having problems affecting capacity leading to regional fluctuations in oil prices is a very common news story.
I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing - if it's good for the US refinery business and they may add capacity over time which might give us a bigger buffer to handle refinery problems. Or it might not, I'm not an oil futures analyst. But it could certainly raise US oil prices at least temporarily.
the point isn't that the risk is high, the point is there is a risk in exchange for very, very little benefit to the US. It's just plain not in our interest and if it wasn't for the silly 'Drill baby drill' clap trap that's been floating around this wouldn't even be discussed. We'd drop it and call it a day.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"Thanks for the TPP fast track power... about that whole pipeline thing you were supposed to get in exchange for that? April fools!"
If refineries in the US start talking larger deliveries of Canadian crude, and the product of that refinement is going to be exported, then yes it can increase oil prices in the US because it represents a loss of refinement capacity dedicated to the US market. Refineries having problems affecting capacity leading to regional fluctuations in oil prices is a very common news story.
The input of a refinery doesn't affect the output providing the core components are the same. The Gulf Region refineries are well kitted out for processing heavy garbage. They do this at the moment. The switch to Canadian crude instead of importing garbage from Venezuela doesn't change the US crude oil as it's a different kind of oil.
Refineries are designed to process a certain type of crude with a certain type of property. The Canadian crudes don't typically compete with the US ones. Actually the biggest change in recent years has been a multi-billion dollar investment in a refinery near Chicago all in the name of switching to a heavier crude slate. You're not going to see everyone running out and doing a project like that. Actually you're pretty much unlikely to see anyone doing it at this point. And that's what it would take to upset the US crude price with the keystone pipeline.
that there is yet another reason. The new lieberal Prime Minister Trudeau told Obama in his first phone call with him several days ago that Canada is pulling out of the US-led coalition against ISIS. I'm sure the libtards will claim that this had nothing whatsoever to do with Obama less than a week later canceling Keystone XL. Yeah, and my name is Donald Duck! Obama could have canceled this on many occasions before, especially while the previous Canadian administration was pestering him about getting approval.
While Canada's few aircraft in Syria were of little practical significance, this was a symbolic "fuck you" to the Americans and an indication that we Canadians are a shifty ally. Moreover, it shows the naive belief that if you leave ISIS alone, ISIS will leave you alone. The new PM has within a few short days of his term already managed to offend the US and show weakness to the terrorists.
One more thing worth mentioning is that, to the extent that one of the contributing reasons for blocking the pipeline was to decrease competition for oil exports (the KXL oil was designated for export after refining in the south, and the US also exports refined oil), that is against NAFTA rules. If such reasoning can be demonstrated, Trans-Canada has a case it can take to a NAFTA tribunal a maybe the WTO. Saying "but it's not in the best interests of America" makes the fallacy of looking at this one issue specifically, rather than the trading partnership as a whole — trading partnerships are in their essence quid pro quo, and you're obliged to do certain things that don't benefit you but help your partner, just as the partner is obliged to do so in return. If you don't like the terms, pull out of the agreement or renegotiate it rather than cheat and use bullshit excuses.
By the way, claiming environmental concerns is hypocrisy when the US has an order of magnitude more oil pipeline already, and California oil production is so much dirtier than the Alberta oil sands.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
You're missing the fact that it will still go to the cars in China -- it's just going to get there by tanker and truck and pipelines within Canada. Along the way it'll be loaded onto Chinese tankers in a cold water port, where when (not if) there is a spill it'll be there for decades.
Clueless move on Obama's part. The oil is gonna get sold; we might as well get some jobs and keep it safe when it comes through our country.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Net Rage.
Bravo.
Now that you've had your break, take your hot pockets down into the basement and refresh your Storm Front page before the cookie expires.
Rail is a bottleneck on transportation, and therefore production - they aren't going to mine and process tar sands far beyond their ability to transport the product. That would be a waste of capital, as any 5th grade student of remedial economics could tell you. Stopping the pipeline means reducing the amount of carbon pollution.
Did you?
Considering he did nothing to stop Wall Street nonsense, did nothing successful to help the environment, and started/escalated more wars than he ended, I thought for sure he'd continue not being a democrat and let the keystone pipeline pass. So far he's done basically nothing other than controversial social issues. I think he's our first troll president.
Why not just move the refineries from Texas to where the oil is, that's Canada. Oh, wait, that'll lose votes ...
The US spends billions" - No, The pipeline was to be paid and built by Transcanada. In fact, Transcanada would have become the largest property tax PAYER in several of the states the pipe crossed.
TransCanada will be the beneficiary of many property tax reductions to get the pipeline made. If TransCanada want to pay full property taxes, let them.
"There will be some jobs to build the pipeline... only a handful to maintain it" - I guess we shouldn't build roads then either? This is about Canada & USA trade, rather than say, Canada & China trade, and USA and Saudi.
Roads are for EVERYONE not just oil carrying trucks. An oil pipeline is just for oil. You can't use it to transport other goods, can you? No this is about Canada trade with the rest of the world. The US will get little from it if TransCanada merely exports all the oil which the vast majority has already been claimed by overseas interests.
" it's not economical to get oil from the tar sands" - Operating costs at existing oilsands operations are now under $35CDN/ barrel. Thats $27USD. And its oil sands, or bitumen, not tar which is a completely different thing.
Where do you get that number? The US Senate disagrees with you.
A frequently cited study prepared for the United States State Department’s review of the Keystone XL pipeline estimated that many oil sands projects become unprofitable at prices of $65 to $75 a barrel. Prices are now below $50.
Yes, this is exactly what they want to do.
Then they should turn down every single tax break and subsidy
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Roads don't create many jobs after they're built either. Ergo, by your logic, we shouldn't build roads.
Oh, and there are 40,000 miles of oil and gas pipe crossing the Ogallala aquifer already.
Here's what WILL happen. Not a single fewer barrel of oil will be produced, or consumed. America will import oil from unfriendly countries on the other side of the world, Canada will export oil to countries on the other side of the world.
Good job!
And Canada quit waiting for the administration to quit dithering several years ago. A pipeline is being built to take Canadian Crude to Vancouver, BC. That is a longer route and much more expensive as it will have to cross the continental divide. Keystone is much more sensible and safer plan (from a construction paradigm) but that has been blocked by liberal greed.
On a project last year, I had an engineer in the next hotel room from me that was working crews on the Canadian pipeline. We talked a great deal about Keystone and what was the American malfunction in taking years to make up its mind. I hadn't heard of Keystone before then except in a mention of crews waiting on hold in Kansas for permission to start work. (local paper when on a project in Kansas. Local pipeline workers were afraid to take other less lucrative short term jobs for fear of losing out on a multi year job.) ... U.S. Citizen working in Canada. Not on an oil related project but hearing both sides of the Keystone argument.
The issue it seems is that the Canadian oil fields can produce more oil than can be transported. In the winter; shipping on the St. Laurence drops to a crawl. Rail and truck are prohibitively expensive to get their oil to a warm water port. So, they need a pipeline to be able to get their oil to a warm water port.
It could have been Houston with U.S. companies getting a piece of the pie but it will now be Vancouver as the destination.
NRRPT/RCT
What about the concerns that a for profit, foreign company was proposing to use eminent domain to acquire the pipeline right-of-way? I don't think that got the press it deserved and was not a precedent we wanted to set as a country.
A foreign company cannot use eminent domain. The local government would be the one using eminent domain if a key location for pipeline transit was being blocked. Negotiation of transit rights is what would be done with most landowners.
Now, in some states; the state reserves the mineral rights and subsurface development would come under eminent domain as the state exercising its mineral rights for subsurface development. What happens with a pipeline is inability to use a property for a period of time, for which the landowner is compensated, then the surface restored to same or better condition than when it was disturbed for the pipeline. It isn't like a railroad where they take over all use of the property when they put tracks through. More like compensation for transit rights as is done with long distance electrical lines.
NRRPT/RCT
A couple actual facts, and yes, to begin, this has nothing to do with the environment. Over the past few years US crude productions has risen sharply and imports have fallen dramatically. This has caused the price of crude to fall to level where exploration cannot be supported. All the oil companies are cutting back on exploration, some are exiting all together selling their leases. Politics, for instance, had nothing to do with shell pulling out of the arctic. It was that the arctic is still very expensive, and at $40 a barrel, no one is making money.
Second, the pipeline is a conservative nightmare on many levels. Primarily it requires the US federal governement to take land from US citizens and give it to a foreign corporations. Many citizen land owners in Texas and other very conservative states have sued for their right to keep their land and not have it annexed to a foreign country, but the conservative courts have said that the landowners do not have the right.
Finally there is the simple matter of production. The US has enough crude to refine. The pipeline made some sense when oil was high as there was going to be money to be made so investing in infrastructure made sense. Now, again, with crude at 40, there is no money to be made. However there is money to be lost. Oil refining has a lot of external costs in terms of health care costs, falling property values around the refinery, and yes, environmental destruction. The Canadians know this which is why they are outsourcing refining to their hick neighbors to the south instead of building infrastructure themselves and reaping the rewards of the alleged profit that comes with it.
Transit rights for a pipeline only impact the use of the property by the owners for the time it takes to build a pipeline. It isn't like running rail through where the property is taken away.
The issue, as I've seen it working in Canada, is shipping outlets to a warm water port. It doesn't help to have a refinery nearer the source if you don't have a way to get the product to market for a chunk of the year.
What the U.S. companies get out of the deal is partial funding for extending a pipeline which will make it easier to move Permian Basin oil to market, and transport fees for getting Canadian oil and bitumen to market. That sounds like a win-win to me.
All the fed has to do is issue the equivalent of a building permit for interstate development of a pipeline. Blocking the pipeline because it doesn't create more long term jobs sounds like an excuse for thumbing the nose at oil companies. Face it, highway construction, building construction, or any other capitol project doesn't create a lot of long term jobs either.
NRRPT/RCT
Secretary of State John Kerry added, "... The United States cannot ask other nations to make tough choices to address climate change if we are unwilling to make them ourselves."
So, I take it that any politician that has a (D) after their title now uses a fully electric... um... limo then? Not a horrible, fossil-fuel powered carbon emitting polluter, but a fully solar-charged 100% electric? And when did AF-1 move from jet fuel to electric?
Or are we being rhetorical again?
Not for or against the KXL, but extremely against hypocritical assholes and statements like this one. What a fucking moron to say something like this when he doesn't do as he says we need to. And neither does Obama... Don't see any new solar panels on the roof of 1600 Pennsylvania.
or maybe they'll run a second pipe alongside the existing Keystone pipeline that crosses the US and then upgrade the diameter of the existing line?
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
A frequently cited study prepared for the United States State Department’s review of the Keystone XL pipeline estimated that many oil sands projects become unprofitable at prices of $65 to $75 a barrel. Prices are now below $50.
If that's the case, then every company involved in oil sands production would be moving on to something else, unless they wanted to lose a lot of money or were being propped up by a government entity.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Not the real price. No idea what it really represents, but by no means what the average citizen pays which is what the parent post was referring to. I mean, I looked at my country, and the real price is twice as high.
Then either the stations near you are gouging you (ex: some stations in US metro areas hike the price significantly) and/or your local levels of government are levying even more taxes than the rest of the country.
The differences in prices across countries are due to the various taxes and subsidies for gasoline.
All countries have access to the same petroleum prices of international markets but then decide to impose different taxes. As a result, the retail price of gasoline is different. In some cases, like Venezuela, the government even subsidizes gasoline and therefore people there pay close to nothing to drive their cars.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs