TransCanada Corporation announced Monday it seeks to build the southern leg of its proposed $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline first, avoiding a U.S. federal review and heightening competition to move crude out of the glutted Cushing, Oklahoma storage hub. TransCanada said it wants to have the southern portion of the 830,000 barrel per day (bpd) pipeline-running from Cushing to Texas refineries on the Gulf of Mexico coast-operational by mid- to late-2013. The approximate cost is $2.3 billion.
