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more access to U.S. refning markets in the Midwest and along the Gulf Coast. The proposed pipeline is expected to predominantly carry diluted bitumen (dilbit) and synbit, as well as synthetic crude oil and light crude oil. The Keystone XL pipeline project cost is estimated to be ~$5.3 billion. The Draft SEIS evaluates the proposed 875-mile (1,408 km) portion of Keystone XL pipeline that would run from the U.S.-Canadian border near Morgan, Montana to the existing Keystone pipeline in Steele City, Nebraska. It builds on the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) analysis completed in August 2011 for the Presidential Permit application submitted by TransCanada in 2008. The original Keystone XL pipeline route would have traversed the northeastern portion of the Sand Hills, an environmentally sensitive region in Nebraska, and a proposed new route was developed by TransCanada. The 2008 Presidential Permit application was denied because a deadline set by a Congressional provision in the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation did not allow suffcient time to prepare a thorough review of the alternative route through Nebraska. Since then, the revised route through Nebraska, which avoids the Sand Hills area and minimizes potential impacts on other environmentally sensitive features in the state, was evaluated by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and approved in January 2013 by Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman. The 2013 Draft SEIS includes a comprehensive review of the proposed new route through Nebraska as well as signifcant new information that is now available for the entire route. The new proposed Keystone XL pipeline route is 509 miles shorter than the previously proposed route, would pass through three states instead of fve, and would cross 56 surface bodies of water instead of 317. According to the Draft SEIS, the State Department and the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety A dministration NACE International, Vol. 52, No. 5 (PHMSA) developed 57 project-specifc special conditions—ranging from steel properties, manufacturing standards, soil coverage, and fracture control to pressure tests, remote-controlled valves, corrosion management and mitigation, and monitoring with supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems—to enhance the overall safety of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project. As a result, the proposed project would be designed, constructed, operated, maintained, and monitored in accordance with the existing PHMSA regulatory requirements for pipelines (49 CFR 1951), as well as in compliance with the more stringent 57 project-specifc special conditions, which TransCanada agreed to incorporate into the proposed project's written design, Continued on page 20 May 2013 MATERIALS PERFORMANCE 19