Spectra To Expand Pipeline Crude Oil Capacity Between Guernsey, WY And Patoka, IL -- October 11, 2014

Spectra to expand existing crude oil pipeline capacity from Guernsey, Wyoming, to Patoka, Illinois. Press release here.

Earlier this year RBN Energy had a great post on the congestion at Guernsey -- too much crude arriving; not enough leaving. Unfortunately, the full RBN Energy article is available only to subscribers (I don't subscribe):

The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog): RBN Energy Must-Read: More Pipeline Capacity For Rocky Mountain Region; Canadian And US 

The linked press release mentions Patoka, IL; the RBN Energy post mentions Wood River, IL, both in the same general area near St Louis. From the press release:

Spectra Energy and Spectra Energy Partners today announced a proposed expansion of their oil pipeline network, with service from Guernsey, WY to Patoka, IL. This announcement is in response to strong market demand to move light, sweet, U.S. domestic crude from multiple supply areas, including the Bakken, the Denver-Julesburg Basin and the Powder River Basin, to Patoka, where shippers will be able to access Midwest and Gulf Coast markets. The expansion may enable future access to Eastern U.S. refiners as Spectra Energy continues to explore opportunities to serve those markets as well.
 
The expansion, which will be in service in 2017 with an initial capacity of approximately 400,000 barrels per day, will provide unprecedented access for shippers to reach markets in eastern PADD 2 and the flexibility to meet light crude refinery demand on the Gulf Coast.

The press release mentions the Powder River Basin. A reader sent this article also, from the Kansas City Star (where Ernest Hemingway got his start?): folks are talking boomtown in Gillette, WY -- Campbell County and just north of Converse County which seems to be the center of Powder River Basin activity (Niobrara).

Campbell County also has solidified itself as the clear leader in oil for the Cowboy State, accounting for 20.5 percent of Wyoming's overall production in 2013 and nearly 25 percent for 2014 through July.

With brisk oil production elsewhere across the United States in places like Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana — along with the breakneck production in the Bakken in North Dakota, which recently topped the 1.1 million barrels per day mark — 2013 was notable for being the first time since 1995 that the United States produced more oil that it imported.

While nobody predicts Wyoming production will ever approach what the Bakken has become, many in the industry believe the upturn in production will be sustainable for decades.

I'm not sure if the article said anything regular readers did not already know, except perhaps to note that that this is Campbell County, and most of the previous talk in this area had been of Converse County.

Also note: "the upturn in production will be sustainable for decades."

Decades.

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Spectra and Natural Gas: A Flashback to 2010

Completely unrelated to these stories, I suppose, it is interesting to take a look at this post back in 2010 and indications of where the natural gas industry was headed back then.

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Kansas City Star

And regular readers know what's coming next:

Kansas City Star, Roger Miller

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/technology/article