Enbridge -- Seaway Crude Pipeline Company -- Wrangler Pipeline

Link here.

Conoco has also agreed to sell its ownership interest in Seaway Crude Pipeline Company to Enbridge Holdings, a subsidiary of Enbridge. The transaction is expected to close in December.

ConocoPhillips said the sales of the two non-core pipeline assets are important components of its $15 billion to $20 billion divestiture program.

What is the Seaway Crude Pipeline?

10/09/1995

A plan to develop an 800,000 b/d crude oil corridor between the Texas Gulf Coast and U.S. Midcontinent regions is on track to begin service early in 1996. In the latest action, state and federal authorities cleared the regulatory path for the proposed Seaway pipeline system. Meantime, work began on two construction projects key to the systems timely start-up. ARCO Pipe Line Co. and units of Phillips Petroleum Co. are creating Seaway pipeline by pooling and reshaping selected assets (see map, OGJ, Feb. 20, p. 35). Project sponsors say the crude oil capacity is needed because existing systems fall about 250,000 b/d short of meeting demand.

What is Enbridge doing?

Enbridge Inc. said Wednesday it would reverse the flow of the Seaway Crude Pipeline to carry up to 400,000 barrels of crude from the oil supply hub of Cushing, Okla., down to the Gulf of Mexico.

Shares of Enbridge ENB +0.73%  rose 1.1% after the company said it would use its pending $1.2 billion acquisition of ConocoPhillips’ COP -0.06%  50% stake of the Seaway Crude Pipeline System to clear up a bottleneck of oil in the Midwest.

Enbridge announced it would reverse the flow of the pipeline with 50% Seaway pipeline owner and operator Enterprise Product Partners  to ship oil to export terminals on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Shares of Enterprise Product Partners rose 0.3%.

But there's more:

Analysts at Howard Weil said Wednesday it will be “interesting to see” if the Wrangler pipeline, which also will run from Cushing to the Gulf Coast refineries near Houston, continues moving forward in light of the Seaway transaction, since Enbridge was a partner in that project along with Enterprise.

From the Wranlger pipeline home page (same as link in earlier paragraph): 

Wrangler Pipeline, L.L.C. is proposing to construct approximately 500 miles of new interstate liquid petroleum pipeline, beginning at an Enbridge terminal in Cushing, Oklahoma, Terminal and extending to the Enterprise ECHO Terminal in southeast Houston, Texas.  A second phase of the project, when developed, will extend approximately 85 miles from ECHO Terminal to near Port Arthur, Texas. The proposed common carrier pipeline will have an initial capacity of up to 800,000 barrels per day of crude oil.

Wrangler is targeting an in-service date of mid-2013.  A sufficient level of interest has been received to begin planning activities and Wrangler will hold an Open Season to secure commitments beginning October 3, 2011.

Resolving the glut at Cushing has to be huge news for Bakken production.

But there is one question that is not being asked.

Just like the cliff-hangers on Dallas.