Eastern Gulf Crude Access Pipeline

No sooner had we finished up our analysis of the divergent fates of two North Dakota crude oil pipeline projects - the Enbridge Sandpiper (going ahead after a successful second open season) and the Koch Dakota Express (cancelled in January) – then we learned that competitor Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) had launched a binding open season for a third pipeline proposal following basically the same route. The ETP press announcement provided few specifics but it seems remarkably similar to the cancelled Koch proposal. Today we look at plusses and minuses of this new pipeline proposal.

In the latter half of 2013 two very similar pipeline projects dueled it out with shippers in North Dakota to secure commitments to move crude out of the Bakken into the Midwest and points south. After addressing some concerns raised by federal regulators about tariff structure, the Enbridge and Marathon Petroleum Company Sandpiper proposal appears to be on track for approval. The rival Koch Dakota Express project was abruptly cancelled in January of this year. In pure capacity terms both these pipelines were “nice to have” not “need to have”. Today we complete our analysis of the fate of these competing projects.