Keystone XL East. Finally. Covering All Bets: The Energy East Pipeline

Remember the Keystone XL? Quick, how much oil (dilbit) was it going to carry?

Give up?

Answer: "transport of up to 830,000 barrels per day."

Hold that thought.

Oil and Gas Journal is reporting: TransCanada has decided to ship this oil to its ports and refineries in eastern Canada, bypassing the United State completely.

Data points:

• would convert TransCanada's Canadian Mainline natural gas pipeline to a crude oil pipeline
• from western Canada to delivery points in a) Montreal; b) Quebec City; and, Saint John, New Brunswick
• 3,000 km (1,800 miles) current pipeline; 1,400 km (840 miles) new pipeline
• Canada's eastern refineries imported 600,000 bopd in 2012
• new pipeline to enter service in 2017

Now the answer to the question above: 850,00 barrels per day.

Coincidence?

I think not.

The Calgary Herald provides much more background information:

• name of pipeline: Energy East Pipeline
• the link to St John, New Brunswick, is new pipeline (avoids the US activist environmentalists in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont)
• $5 to $6 billion
• this article also mentions Enbridge activities moving oil in the same direction

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Enbridge is either already shipping Bakken oil to eastern Canadian terminals or is in the process of doing the same thing, but some legs will be in the United States. Searching the blog will bring up several posts related to these on-going Enbridge activities. This is a fairly comprehensive overview. Note: the Sandpiper permit was denied by the US but Enbridge is confident it will work around this.