Enbridge Oil Pipeline Expansion

 

Governor Schweitzer called a meeting in April 2006, with Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal and North Dakota Governor John Hoeven to discuss the regional need for additional infrastructure to get oil to domestic refineries. Inadequate pipeline capacity was resulting in oil price differentials that hurt Montana producers. More than one hundred producers and industry representatives attended that meeting. Enbridge has taken steps to alleviate this bottleneck with two expansion projects. Enbridge’s Phase 5 expansion project is a 30,000 bpd expansion project that was completed in 2007 and increased export capacity for Montana oil fields. The Phase 6 expansion, with an estimated cost of approximately $150 million, has added 40,000 bpd of capacity from the western end of the system to Minot, North Dakota and 51,000 bpd of capacity from Minot to Clearbrook, Minnesota. The line was completed and placed into service on January 1, 2010 and has markedly increased the capacity to ship oil from Northeast Montana to market. These improvements increased total system capacity from 110,000 bpd to 161,000 bpd.

Bison Natural Gas Pipeline

 

The Bison Pipeline Project is a proposed major transportation link between the natural gas reserves of the Rocky Mountain area, from the Powder River Basin to natural gas markets in the Midwest and the Chicago area. Bison Pipeline LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Northern Border Pipeline Company. TransCanada Northern Border Inc. serves as operator of Bison Pipeline LLC. Construction on the approximately 300 mile pipeline began in July 2010 with gas flowing through the pipe by early 2011. The 30- inch pipeline is capable of carrying up to 477 million cubic of feet of gas a day with the capacity to be expanded to 1 billion cubic feet per day.

 

Keystone XL Pipeline

 

TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline (KXL), announced in the summer of 2008, will transport crude oil 1,980 miles, from Alberta through Montana and on to Nebraska. KXL is a 36” crude oil pipeline and will provide additional capacity of 510,000 barrels per day to the existing Keystone Pipeline, eventually ending in the US Gulf Coast. The pipeline will run 281 miles through Eastern Montana and total investment in Montana will be approximately $1 billion. TransCanada has announced a positive conclusion to its Montana On-Ramp “open season” by entering into firm term contracts with independent oil producers. According to TransCanada, 65,000 barrels of crude oil per day will be shipped through a new Baker, Montana on-ramp to be constructed as part of the Keystone XL pipeline project. The approximate cost of the on-ramp project will be $100 million dollars, which is in addition to the $1 billion estimate cost to construct the Montana portion of the Keystone XL pipeline. The on-ramp will add about $2 million annually of property tax revenue in Fallon County.

 

Poplar System Expansion

 

Bridger Pipeline LLC owns and operates the Poplar System, a 10” and 12” pipeline in eastern Montana that carries crude oil from the eastern Williston Basin south to Baker. Current capacity is approximately 42,000 bpd with plans in place to expand this capacity to 60,000-80,000 bpd.