(Reuters 3/29/2012) - Even as big U.S. oil pipelines invest billions of dollars to ship booming oil production south from Canada and North Dakota, a new race is underway in the opposite direction.
Two of the country's biggest pipelines, both now underutilized, are competing to pump a special type of ultra light oil from the Gulf Coast to the Midwest, betting on growing demand from Canadian producers for the "diluent" necessary to get their heavy oil sands bitumen flowing to refiners.
The race between the Capline and Explorer lines, which may play out over years rather than...