Canadian regulator approves Enbridge’s $180 million Bakken pipeline

Canada’s energy and  pipeline regulator has approved an application by Enbridge to build a $180 million pipeline to move oil out of the pipeline-constrained Bakken oil play.

In a decision released Thursday, the National Energy Board said there is enough commercial interest to support construction of the 123.4-kilometre pipeline.

The line would carry 145,000 barrels of oil a day from the Bakken and Three Forks formations in Montana and North Dakota to Cromer, Manitoba, via a new pump station at Steelman, Saskatchewan.

Pipeline companies like Enbridge have been struggling to keep up with a flood of oil coming out of the United States.

The dramatic rise in domestic oil production in the US is driven by new technologies and new finds particularly in the Bakken oil basin that covers Montana, North Dakota, and Saskatchewan. Output from the Bakken fields topped 420,000 barrels a day in July from zero a few years ago.

“The (pipeline) would serve as a continuous, long-term source of supply to Eastern Canadian and US Midwest markets, thus maintaining the long-term competitiveness of refineries in those regions,” the NEB said in its statement.

The new pipeline is expected to be in service in early 2013.

Enbridge said earlier this month it will invest $145 million to boost capacity at its Berthold, N.D. crude oil terminal. In October the company announced a $90 million US Bakken Access Program to build more pipeline capacity including more storage tanks and truck facilities.

 

 

2 Comments