There are concerns about how exposed the Dakota Access oil pipeline is to financial risk in the energy market, a group with ties to climate research said.

Energy Transfer Partners, one of the main companies behind the $3.7 billion pipeline, filed a legal challenge against alleged "political interference" in the project. With nationwide protests against the project mounting, the company said more delays that followed a lengthy review process were contrary to the rule of law.

"Dakota Access Pipeline has been granted every permit, approval, certificate, and right-of-way needed for the pipeline's construction," Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren said in a statement.

With only a few hundred feet left in construction, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered a halt to the process to take time for "additional discussion and analysis" of the potential threat to the interests of the Sioux tribe and area waters.

The last few hundred feet of construction requires drilling under the Missouri River. Outside of the environmental and tribal concerns, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said there were concerns about the economic risks for the project.

According to the IEEFA, if the pipeline isn't completed by Jan. 1, the project consortium may have to revisit some of the contracts for shipping oil through the 1,110-mile pipeline. The institute said further that crude oil prices being about 50 percent lower than they were at the height of the U.S. shale era means the regional economic prospects are far from certain.

"If oil prices remain low and Bakken oil production continues to collapse, pipeline capacity will quickly become superfluous," Clark Williams-Derry, a co-author of the report published by the IEEFA, said in a statement. "The Bakken oil industry has already over-invested in infrastructure for moving oil, and the Dakota Access Pipeline could simply add to the glut."

Enbridge Energy, which is party to North Dakota pipeline infrastructure, in September said regional crude oil production was too low to support the development of the planned east-bound Sandpiper pipeline. The company in its latest quarterly results said most of its existing pipeline networks were oversubscribed.

The Dakota Access pipeline could carry as much as half of what North Dakota produces and the pipeline consortium said that would reduce shipment by rail, which carries its own risks. At least 40 people were killed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in the 2013 derailment of a train carrying tankers of crude oil from North Dakota to Canadian refineries.

The IEEFA in the past received grant money from the Rockefeller Family Foundation, which since 2006 has focused almost exclusively on climate change.

Last plea to Obama on offshore drilling limits
Washington (UPI) Nov 16, 2016 - Oil and gas exploration in the U.S. waters of the Atlantic Ocean may put some legacy economic interests at risk, a consortium of area businesses said.

More than 10,000 business and hundreds of thousands of families tied to commercial fishing sent a letter through an Atlantic Coast business alliance to President Barack Obama urging him to hold off on expanding access to potential drillers.

Energy companies use seismic surveys to get a better understanding of the oil and gas reserve potential and some groups have expressed concern that action could have a detrimental impact on marine ecosystems. Seismic research could interfere with normal communication patterns for some marine species, though contractors said the impacts are temporary.

The consortium said in their letter to the White House that seismic work could disrupt the 1.4 million area jobs and the $95 billion in economic activity tied to regional fishing, tourism and recreation.

"Although the Atlantic Ocean is protected from oil and natural gas drilling for now, geological and geophysical exploration using seismic airgun testing continues to threaten productive fisheries, marine organisms and ocean ecosystems," Frank Knapp Jr., the president of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement.

The U.S. Defense Department has also said there may be areas of potential oil and gas work in the Atlantic that may not be compatible with defense operations and interests. The U.S. Interior Department as early as Wednesday could release its final five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leases.

The department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management pulled the Atlantic off its earlier list, but the potential inclusion of oil and gas areas in the Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska has generated some concern in environmental advocacy circles.

The Obama presidency is ending and President-elect Donald Trump has put forward a pro-oil agenda. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been mentioned as a possible Interior Secretary under his administration and she favors a drill-centric policy.

Jacqueline Savitz, a vice president at advocacy group Oceana, said Trump's position so far has been fluid, but pressed for careful consideration before he takes office in January.

"We hope that the next president will move away from expanding offshore drilling, and instead build a lucrative clean energy economy for the United States," she said.