Impact Of Losing Line 5 -- RBN Energy -- July 19, 2019

Wells coming off the confidential list today -- Friday, July 19, 2019: 32 for the month; 32 for the quarter;

• 35108, 1,824, CLR, Carson Peak 6-35H1, Oakdale, t5/19; cum 69K over 50 days; 
• 34353, 2,913, CLR, Morris 4-23HSL, Oakdale, t3/19; cum 56K, about 27 days;
• 33475, drl, EOG, Liberty LR 47-1416H, Parshall, no production data,
• 33474, drl, EOG, Liberty LR 110-1416H, Parshall, no production data,

Active rigs:

$56.12	7/19/2019	07/19/2018	07/19/2017	07/19/2016	07/19/2015
Active Rigs	55	68	59	30	73

RBN Energy: refinery impacts if Enbridge's Michigan crude oil pipeline is shut down -- Line 5.

The battle over the future of Enbridge’s Line 5 light crude oil pipeline through Michigan is heating up. In recent weeks, Michigan’s new attorney general filed suit to throw out the 1953 easement the state granted to allow the pipeline to be laid under the Straits of Mackinac — the narrow waterway between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas — and to block implementation of an agreement Enbridge and the state’s then-governor reached last fall to replace the section of Line 5 under the straits by the mid-2020s. Enbridge is pressing ahead, maintaining that the existing pipeline is safe and the 2018 agreement is legal and fully enforceable. All that raises two questions: just how important is Line 5 to the Michigan and Eastern Canadian refineries, and what would those refineries do if the pipeline were to cease operations? Today, we discuss recent developments and examine the issues at hand.

Enbridge’s Line 5, part of the Canadian midstream company’s much larger Mainline/Lakehead crude oil pipeline system, has been an important conduit for moving Western Canadian and Bakken crude oil and NGLs across Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas — and into Ontario — for more than 65 years. Line 5 (purple line in Figure 1) is one of multiple Enbridge pipelines out of the company’s terminal in Superior, WI. The 540-Mb/d pipeline transports “batches” of either light crude, light synthetic crude or mixed NGLs 645 miles east/southeast through Michigan to Sarnia, ON. The crude oils and NGLs are sourced primarily in Western Canada (but also in the Bakken) and are bound for Michigan, Ontario and Quebec. At the Straits of Mackinac (dashed red oval) — the four-mile-wide water passage between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas (and Lake Michigan and Lake Huron) — the 30-inch-diameter, single-pipe Line 5 splits into two 20-inch-diameter, parallel pipes that are anchored along the straits’ lakebed.