Well, railroads and trucks transport a lot of oil in this country too.
When most people think of oil companies, they think of those companies engaged with the extraction of oil and gas. Some of these are integrated, meaning they include the midstream and downstream/marketing side of the industry. Google it and see.
Your point would make more sense if you had said oil industry instead of company.
Your comment implied Trump had favoritism toward oil companies, and I asked where the source for that favoritism existed.
And yes, dumping cheap subsidized steel onto this country from foreign entities does threaten our own domestic industry unfairly. It is particularly important that the US retains a viable steel manufacturing industry as a National Security matter. It saved us during the last World War and overwhelmed those who wished to destroy us.
Well, here's the problem.
If you are producing oil, you are going to get some natural gas. How much varies, depending on where you are and what formation, and even where in that reservoir area you may be getting the oil and gas, but no one is hauling raw wellhead gas around on a train or trucking it out. Feeder pipelines are necessary to get the gas to processing facilities and to comply with methane release and flaring regulations in the US, which vary by state, but also have Federal limits imposed.
That wellhead gas is, except where it is the objective, a byproduct of oil production. If you can't get it to a processing facility, the amount of oil will be determined by flaring regulations and the Gas/Oil ratio of the produced fluid. In almost all cases cutting back on the gas produced means cutting production of oil, as they come out of the ground together (the gas actually can help get the oil out).
At a processing plant, the various compounds present in the raw wellhead gas, from helium, Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Water, Ethane, Propane, Normal Butane, Iso-Butane, Pentanes, including isomers, and a host of other volatile organic compounds, and inert gasses, are separated, some are liquefied, and moved out by pipeline, rail, or truck. The most common component is Methane, which we know as Natural Gas, and it is often present in such quantities that the only economical way to move it is by pipeline. While loading and transporting oil by rail has its complexities and, yes, dangers, those complexities would be amplified considerably in having to transport pressurized tank cars full of LNG in unit trains cross country, and the effects of an accident could be even more devastating than the effects of a derailment with a trainload of crude oil. In fact, in consideration of those potential problems, the Feds have issued only one permit to transport LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas by rail, in Alaska.
source Considering the furor over rail accidents involving Crude oil cargoes, the objection to LNG transport would be predictable.
Trucking (aside from local distribution) and even rail transport of processed Natural Gas (mostly Methane), and the Natural Gas Liquids (ethane, propane, butane, isobutane, and others) which are separated from the raw wellhead gas at the processing facility is done by truck and rail, but more popularly, by pipeline.
Safety is a major consideration, but economics factor in, too.
I recall transport costs for crude oil from this area (Williston Basin, Home of the Bakken) were some $5 per barrel higher by rail than they were by pipeline (DAPL, et. al.) and still some half million or more barrels of oil per day leave the region by rail. (last monthly production figures place oil production from North Dakota, alone at 1.25 million barrels of oil per day). For starters, that's 2.5 million dollars a day in transport cost differences, which would be passed on to consumers for just North Dakota and the DAPL. As Texans would gleefully remind me, we're second in State oil production, they lead by a considerable margin.
Any reduction in oil production or natural gas production to comply with State and federal methane emission or flaring restrictions will also cause an increase in prices, because production will have to be reduced. There is a pretty solid correlation between lower production and higher prices. (Need I say it, but there is another correlation between increased energy costs and higher taxes).
If the gas processing plants can't get product to market in an efficient way, that bottleneck will mean they can't process as much gas. Which takes us back to the flaring/gas emissions problem, compliance with Federal and State regulations, and having ultimately, to limit the flaring and emission of Methane and other VOCs by reducing the production of oil.
Pipelines for gas transfer (not gasoline, but wellhead gas and refined, processed gas) have to meet pressure and integrity criteria or you risk having the sort of explosions that make a real mess somewhere, or even in the middle of nowhere, but will definitely cause interruptions in supply. (We are also assured by some that the escape of greenhouse gasses could bring on TEOTWAWKI, but I have my doubts about that).
If you recall, when they were up-armoring Humvees, one of the bottlenecks in the process was the inability to obtain the correct steel to do so. Lesser steel would just not do, and could not stop the fragments from IEDs and other banes of the infantryman's existence from being a real and lethal threat. Some fragments still were, as was a serious hit by an IED, but the reduction was appreciated by our troops, I am sure.
Similarly, if the sort of tubular goods (pipe) needed for high pressure applications isn't available here, either the companies putting in the pipeline use below spec materials and risk disaster, or they go elsewhere and get what they need.
Considering we export Natural Gas, and export oil (helping keep the petro-dollar the exchange currency worldwide, which keeps the greenbacks in your pocket from being worth less than toilet paper given how many were invented in the last decade), having the ability to move the goods out of the Permian Basin, and for that matter, across the country in general, is important to the overall economy, not just West Texas. Of course, increased costs will be passed on, ultimately, to consumers, either in the form of higher prices due to materials costs with tariffs, or lower production because of bottlenecks, which just means higher prices.
Personally, I view such pipelines as critical infrastructure and a matter of National Security.
Energy distribution is vital, whether it be liquid, gas, or swarms of irritated electrons. Considering the Permian Basin represents an unconventional resource which is a game-changer, and currently the most active area in terms of drilling activity and new production in the country, the ability to bring those wells on line and move the produced oil and gas to processing, refining, and market is a priority, not just for Texas, but for the entire nation.
The ability to produce energy in quantities which make export possible will help reduce trade deficits and has the ability to alter the global balance of power. The Soviets/Russians have had Europe in a headlock over natural gas supplies since WWII, and the Far East is seeking energy, often in regions the Japanese sought to control for energy and raw material supplies during WWII. The entire South China Sea friction, from manufactured island bases to conflicting territorial claims is largely over the rights to explore for and exploit offshore oil and gas reserves.
Until such time as those are developed, we have a marketable commodity that can bring the trade imbalances of the past closer to balance.
But we have to be able to deliver the goods.
I might be able to see protectionism if there was a domestic supplier to protect, but in this case, and in the absence of a domestic supplier, it's just another tax on oil and gas.
