Take-Away Capacity -- Oil -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

There is an interesting graphic on Slide 33 of the most recent Whiting corporate presentation.

North Dakota is currently producing about 350,000 bbls of oil per day.

Take-away capacity, based on the Whiting presentation, slide 33:

Existing capacity:

• Enbridge: 185,000
• Bridger / Belle Bourche: 120,000
• Tesoro / Mandan: 60,000
• EOG (rail): 60,000
• Plains:
• Hess (rail):
• COLT (rail):
• Quintana:
• Total existing capacity: 425,000

2011 Additions:

• Enbridge: 25,000 (Q2)
• Bridger / Belle Fourche: 30,000 (Q1)
• COLT (rail): 27,000 (Q4)
• Total additional capacity: 82,000

2012 Additions:

• Enbridge: 145,000 (Q4)
• Bridger / Belle Fourche: 50,000 (Q1)
• Plains: 50,000 (Q4)
• Hess (rail): 60,000 (Q1)
• Total additional capacity: 305,000

2013 Additions:

• Bridger / Belle Fourche: 100,000 (Q1)
• Quintana: 100,000 (Q1)
• Total additional capacity: 200,000

At end of 2013, therefore, takeaway capacity in North Dakota is estimated to be: 1,012,000 bbls/day.

The end of 2013 is not all that far away.

 At the end of this year (2011), takeaway capacity should be slightly more than 500,000 bbls/day.

The Quintana pipeline appears to begin south of Watford City (McKenzie County) and will go direclty through Whiting's Lewis and Clark prospect before hooking up with pipelines farther south.

Quintana Capital Group Ltd. said it wants to build a $250 million, 300-mile-long pipeline system from western North Dakota to eastern Montana, where it would meet TransCanada Corp.'s proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Terry Cunha, a TransCanada spokesman at the company's headquarters in Calgary, Alberta, said no agreement has been reached with Quintana or any other company wanting to ship domestic crude in its pipeline.

Quintana's pipeline would initially carry 100,000 barrels of crude from the Watford City area to Montana's Fallon County, where it also could be linked with pipelines that carry Montana crude, the company's proposal said.

Of course, this is all on hold while US State Department rules on Keystone XL and, even if approved, has several obstacles.