US asks TransCanada if Keystone X oil pipeline is using Indian steel

US lawmakers have asked TransCanada Corporation to immediately disclose whether it is using steel made in India for Keystone X, the $7 billion, 2,700km trans-America crude oil pipeline.

Republican Senator's Henry Waxman, Bobby Rush, John Dingell and Mike Doyle had sent a letter to TransCanada, requesting that the company immediately disclose where the steel to be used in Keystone XL.

At a Congressional hearing last December, US lawmakers were told by the Calgary, Alberta-based company that approximately 74 per cent of the pipe required for the project in the US was sourced from North American based mills -- Evraz Regina Canada and Welspun Tubular in Little Rock-Arkansas, and not from India.

Doyle now says that these statements may not be accurate and claims to have new information that reveals that the steel may have been produced in India and lawmakers have once again asked TransCanada to disclose where the steel for the pipeline is from before the House of Representatives considers legislation to approve Keystone XL next week as part of the transportation bill.

On 6 February 2012, Welspun Tubular informed Doyle's office that some of the steel pipe to be used in the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline was produced in India. 

Doyle alleges that the steel for the Keystone XL pipeline is not being manufactured in Little Rock, as there is no steel being manufactured there. In fact, Little Rock has taken steel manufactured by a foreign country, and only heats, bends and welds the seams at its plant in Arkansas.