Move Over, Keystone: 2 More Pipelines Planned

Calgary-based driller to send oil to Houston-based refinery
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 27, 2012 9:39 AM CDT
Move Over, Keystone: 2 More Pipelines Planned
This Jan. 10, 2012 photo shows the Douglas Channel, the proposed termination point for an oil pipeline in the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project at Kitamaat, British Columbia, Canada.   (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck)

The Keystone XL pipeline may be mired in politics, but take heart, pipeline lovers: With Canadian crude oil production soaring, Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners and Calgary-based Enbridge hope to build two new pipelines to pump it to US refineries, the Wall Street Journal reports. The companies intend to build a second pipeline alongside an existing one from their Cushing, Okla., storage facility to Freeport, Texas, and another from Enbridge's hub in Flanagan, Ill., to Cushing.

These pipelines have fewer hurdles to jump than Keystone, because the cross-border portion is already in place, but still must get approval from the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Army Corps of Engineers. And while they're less controversial than Keystone, environmental groups aren't thrilled with them, arguing that Canadian oil sands produce more corrosive crude, making pipeline leaks more likely. A similar Enbridge pipeline near Kalamazoo, Mich., sprang a costly leak in 2010. (More TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline stories.)

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