Obama Notes Concerns Over 'Extraordinarily Dirty' Canada Oil Extraction

COLUMBIA, S.C., March 6 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday repeated concerns that the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline project will only create "about 300" permanent jobs and poses environmental concerns.

"The reason that a lot of environmentalists are concerned about it is the way that you get the oil out in Canada is an extraordinarily dirty way of extracting oil, and obviously there are always risks in piping a lot of oil through Nebraska farmland and other parts of the country," Obama told students at a town hall event.

"I haven't made a final determination on it, but what I've said is, 'we're not going to authorize a pipeline that benefits largely a foreign company if it can't be shown that it is safe and if it can't be shown that overall it would not contribute to climate change,'" Obama said. (Reporting by Julia Edwards; Writing by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Sandra Maler)