Silver Lining In Every Cloud -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

As noted earlier, the Keystone XL is dead.

Keystone XL’s permit delay increases the possibility that other projects to transport oil recovered from Alberta’s oil sands to US Gulf Coast refiners will move forward, Forrest continued. The most prominent is Enbridge Inc.’s proposed Wrangler pipeline which, combined with the Calgary company’s Flanagan South project and existing Alberta Clipper pipeline, could serve a function similar to Keystone XL’s, she said.

In its Nov. 9 report of financial results for the third quarter and 9 months ended Sept. 30, Enbridge said expansion of Enbridge Energy Partners LP’s Line 5 and reversal of the segment of Enbridge's Line 9 from Sarnia to Westover, announced in early October, would provide increased access to US Upper Midwest and Ontario refineries Canada for light crude produced in western Canada and the US.

It said Wrangler, which it announced in late September as a proposed joint venture with Enterprise Product Partners, would transport crude from the Cushing, Okla., hub to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. Enbridge is also developing the proposed Flanagan South Project to add capacity to Cushing from its Flanagan, Ill., terminal, Enbridge said.

Pipeline capacity also is needed to move light crude produced from North Dakota’s Bakken shale and other US Midcontinent tight oil formations, she continued. “Based on our view of growth in Canadian oil sands and tight oil production, over the next 5 years North America will need both the Keystone XL and the Enbridge projects in order to create enough takeaway capacity to prevent bottlenecks,” Forrest said.

And note this:

“If no pipeline solutions occur in the next few years, we are likely to see a very significant build out of rail capacity, which has higher transportation cost than pipelines, to bring Canadian oil sands and Midcontinent tight oil to new markets,” she added.

One almost gets the feeling the crude-by-rail oil-loading facility promoters knew the Keystone XL was dead. There are least ten such facilities on-line or being built in North Dakota.