Enbridge Will Reverse Flow Of Yet Another Pipeline

Link here.

I blogged about this yesterday.

Today the WSJ has an even bigger story, page C4, same subject, this time talking about two companies: Enbridge and TransCanada. Yesterday's note just mentioned TransCanada.

I thought it was a huge story yesterday; it appears the folks over at the WSJ think it's a big story also, based on the amount of space and the huge graphic they devoted to the story.

With more oil than customers, Canada's landlocked West has sought to carve out new markets in the U.S. Gulf Coast and Asia. The next frontier is east.

Pipeline companies Enbridge Inc. and TransCanada Corp. are exploring ways to ship crude to both U.S. and Canadian refineries on the East Coast, the latest projects aimed at reconfiguring energy infrastructure to accommodate North America's oil-output boom.

Enbridge plans to reverse the flow of oil on an existing pipeline by the first quarter of next year, and TransCanada is looking at converting a natural-gas pipeline to oil.

About the reversal:

Even though Canada is the biggest exporter to the U.S., it has to import 650,000 barrels of light crude from Africa and the Middle East because of the lack of pipeline connections from the West to the East. The prices of the imports are well above prices for U.S. and Canadian crude.

Enbridge and TransCanada have presented two preliminary proposals. Enbridge wants to reverse the flow of a pipeline [Enbridge Line 9] that currently takes foreign crude from Canada's eastern ports to Ontario. The pipeline initially would have a capacity of 50,000 barrels a day and later ramp up to 200,000 barrels a day, said Enbridge Chief Executive Pat Daniel. TransCanada is mulling a separate plan that would modify part of its existing, 1,500-mile natural gas pipeline from Alberta to Montreal to transport oil instead.

The article concludes with this positive note: both plans likely to hit strong headwinds of the faux environmentalists who don't like heavy oil (among much else).

Also: note that last sentence in the cut and paste above: 

TransCanada is mulling a separate plan that would modify part of its existing, 1,500-mile natural gas pipeline from Alberta to Montreal to transport oil instead.

This is exactly the subject of the two most recent RBN Energy articles posted yesterday and today.