Keystone pipeline material cost ratio

This ten percent figure has some variation. There are two areas where the cost of the raw material is thirty percent of the cost of building something. One is pipelines — like the Keystone pipeline from the Canadian border down to Texas — the steel pipe is going to be thirty percent of the cost of digging the hole, putting it in the ground, and everything else. The other is utility transmission towers — these big ugly things that have half-million-volt electrical lines on them.

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