Explorer

Canadian production of diluent range light hydrocarbon materials such as natural gasoline and condensate are not currently meeting demand from the oil sands region. Diluent is used to reduce the viscosity of heavy Canadian crude so that it can flow to market in pipelines. Diluent supplies required to supplement Canada’s domestic output are nearly all imported from the U.S. via two pipelines that originate in the Midwest. Those pipelines are mostly supplied with diluent sourced from the Gulf Coast. Today we look at how imported diluent gets to Western Canada.

Two years ago, the Double Eagle condensate pipeline from the western oil and rich gas windows of the South Texas Eagle Ford basin simply provided access to Corpus Christi. By early 2015, the Double Eagle will be linked to the Kinder Morgan crude and condensate pipeline to Houston. Together the two systems will offer shippers access to Corpus Christi, Houston, condensate splitter capacity and diluent pipelines to western Canada. Today we describe the growth of this multi-destination delivery system.