Construction is set to begin this summer on the White House-approved southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline after its backers today announced the receipt of their final required permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.

TransCanada Corp. disclosed the completion of its third corps permit to break ground on the now-rechristened Gulf Coast Project, a 485-mile slice of the original Keystone XL that links Oklahoma with coastal refineries, as it notified investors of $300 million in second-quarter earnings.

While the Obama administration remains in the early stages of its environmental and economic review of the now-shortened XL line -- which would connect the oil sands crude facilities of western Canada with part of a pre-existing heavy fuel line that runs through the Midwest -- it endorsed the southern pipe leg in March.

Greenwire first reported in May that TransCanada changed the proposed route of the Gulf Coast pipeline to avoid the need for U.S. EPA to weigh in on its Army Corps permitting process, a key avenue that environmentalists had hoped to use to slow the project's march to construction (Greenwire, May 23).

In announcing the receipt of its final Army Corps permit, TransCanada CEO Russ Girling highlighted company projections that the southern pipeline's construction would generate 4,000 jobs.

"TransCanada has an industry-leading safety record and that is something we take great pride in," Girling said in a statement. "People expect their energy to be delivered safely and reliably -- on this point there can be no compromise."

Whether green activists can throw another wrench in the construction of the Gulf Coast pipe, part of a system that is expected to bring upward of 730,000 barrels of emissions-heavy oil sands crude from Canada to U.S. refineries, remains to be seen. Conservationists last month vowed to mount a "blockade" aimed at using nonviolent protest to slow down the project.

The State Department, now ramping up its fresh review of Keystone XL's rerouted path through Nebraska, has said that it expects to reach a final decision early next year. Ranchers and environmentalists in the Cornhusker State are vowing to press their case against TransCanada's new path, which they say misses the mark on avoiding the sensitive soil and high water tables of the state's Sand Hills region (Greenwire, July 10).