Canada and the United States might have been set to do this exact same thing, pictured above, somewhere in South Dakota in 2022 to celebrate the completion of the Keystone Pipeline. Finishing that pipeline would have been a very neighborly thing to do and would have served to blend two different crude oils, one low gravity, viscous crude (Canada) with with high gravity, high naphtha, tight oil (United States). It would have been a good, long lasting relationship for the benefit of the entire North American Continent. "Regional" energy security with Canada is very important.
Keystone will not likely ever happen now. Too many dumb people in charge. Instead the Canadian oil industry got shot at and missed, shit on and hit...and America is now exporting the last of it's hydrocarbon resources (light tight oil) all over the world, including China, because its refineries can't process any more of the stuff.
You can't make up how stupid all this is.
The events in the photograph did happen, in 1941. This was the last ceremonial weld of the Portland-Montreal Pipeline. I suspect no body is actually going to burn their eyes or get the shit shocked out them holding the ground, however.
Not long after this photo was taken the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Canada's crude oil imports to its East Coast were severely jeopardized. Oil from the Texas Gulf Coast was shipped around to Portland, Maine and sent to a large refinery in Montreal via this pipe. Over the years the PMP carried close to 5 billion barrels of valuable crude oil to Canada.
It was what good neighbors use to do for one another. America imported Alberta oil and natural gas for years; never had to send troops up there to protect the stuff, no American every got killed defending Canadian oil and gas. When the shale revolution occurred in the US we pulled the rug out from under Alberta and Biden did it again in 2021.
The United States will need Canada again, very soon, along with oil from the entire rest of the world. Lets hope the rest of the world will let bygones be gone. I wouldn't blame them much if they didn't. One things for sure, America's reasonably affordable oil is gone, being pissed off, and what we need in the future is going to cost big bucks.