Re-Posting: Three New North Dakota Pipelines Could Add Almost One Million BOPD Takeaway Capacity By 2016 -- September 8, 2014

I can't recall if I posted this article. I know I posted the three pipeline stories in separate posts, but not sure if I posted the WSJ article regarding all the North Dakota pipeline activity earlier this year. For the archives, the WSJ is reporting three new pipelines in North Dakota could carry almost another 1 million bbls by 2016:

Energy Transfer Partners said Wednesday it is moving ahead with plans to build a 1,100-mile crude pipeline between North Dakota fields and the oil hub in Patoka, Ill. It could move as much as 320,000 barrels a day to refineries in the Midwest, travel by rail to East Coast plants or be loaded into another pipeline to the Gulf Coast.

Separately this week Enterprise Product Partners L.P.  said it hopes to build a 340,000-barrel-a-day line from Stanley, ND, to the crude oil-storage hub at Cushing, OK, though no final decision by the company's board has been made. The Bakken has become one of the most prolific oil-producing regions in the country, but most of its more than 1 million barrels a day of crude output is shipped by rail.

A third line, previously announced by Enbridge Energy Partners EEP was approved Wednesday by North Dakota regulators. The company can begin construction on the 600-mile Sandpiper pipeline as soon as July 1. That $2.6-billion project, scheduled to move oil from North Dakota to Clearbrook, MN, starting in 2016, will have a capacity of 225,000 barrels of oil a day. From the Clearbrook oil terminal to another oil hub in Superior, WI, that pipeline will have a bigger capacity of 375,000 barrels a day.

Comment: my understanding is that, at the moment, CBR + rail is getting most/all of the oil produced out of the Bakken. Whether or not these pipelines come to fruition, the fact is "they" are planning for about one million more bopd takeaway (pipeline) and yet, folks are still building CBR terminals or more tank cars. This suggests what Bentek estimated a year or so ago might be very accurate.