The Bakken Shale needs more natural gas takeaway capacity, North Dakota wants to encourage more in-state consumption of Bakken-sourced gas, and two entities — WBI Energy and a combo of Intensity Infrastructure Partners and Rainbow Energy Center — have each proposed similar (but not identical) cross-state pipelines that would help achieve those aims. But, assuming that two new pipelines would be overkill, which of the two proposals is the more likely to advance to a final investment decision (FID), construction and operation? In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the two competitors and the state of North Dakota’s impending decision on which pipeline project to support.
Since the early days of the Shale Era — and the RBN blogosphere — we’ve written frequently about the ongoing need to build more midstream infrastructure to serve Bakken production. Crude oil gathering systems and takeaway pipelines. Crude-by-rail terminals. Gas gathering systems and gas processing plants. Natural gas and NGL pipelines. Even now, with Bakken crude oil production holding steady at close to 1.2 MMb/d through most of the 2020s — far below the play’s 1.5-MMb/d peak six years ago — the push to develop more infrastructure continues. There are three primary drivers: (1) a gas-to-oil ratio (GOR) that has more than doubled since the mid-2010s, (2) steadily increasing production of NGLs (see our recently posted Two Gunslingers for more on that); and (3) gas-demand pull from new power generation, data center and industrial projects.
Today, our focus is on gas pipelines — especially two competing proposals to build large-diameter pipelines that would run from the Bakken to the eastern edge of North Dakota. (More on those in a moment.)
The vast majority of the nearly 3.5 Bcf/d produced in the Bakken heads toward the U.S. Midwest via TC Energy and ONEOK’s jointly owned Northern Border Pipeline (dark-yellow line in Figure 1 below), which transports both Western Canadian and Bakken gas. Much smaller volumes of Bakken gas flow into Pembina Pipeline Corp.’s Alliance Pipeline (light-purple line), whose flows are dominated by gas from Western Canada. Note that Alliance transports “rich” or “wet” gas with significant levels of NGLs that are largely removed at Pembina’s 2.1-Bcf/d Aux Sable gas processing complex just west of Chicago.
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About the song
“Torn Between Two Lovers” was written by Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary fame) and Phillip Jarrell. It appears as the fifth song on side two of the 1976 debut album of the same name by Mary MacGregor. The song about a love triangle was recorded at Muscle Shoals Studio in Alabama and released as a single in November 1976. It went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and has been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. Personnel on the record were: Mary MacGregor (lead vocals), Berry Beckett, Tim Henson (keyboards), David Hood (bass), Roger Hawkins (drums), Ken Bell (acoustic guitar), David Campbell (string arrangements, conducting), and Ginger Holladay, Lisa Silver, Sheri Kramer (backing vocals).
The album Torn Between Two Lovers was recorded in 1976 at Muscle Shoals Studio in Sheffield, AL, and produced by Peter Yarrow and Barry Beckett. Released in November 1976, it went to #3 on the Billboard Country Albums chart and #17 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. Three singles were released from the LP.
Mary MacGregor is an American pop singer. She started her professional career in 1975 as a backing vocalist for Peter Yarrow on tour and appeared on Yarrow’s Love Songs LP. Yarrow helped to secure a record deal on Ariola Records for the singer and a production deal for Yarrow and Muscle Shoals musician Barry Beckett to produce her debut album. She released four studio albums and 10 singles. In 1980, she won Best Song at the World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo. MacGregor retired from the music business in 2000 and lives with her husband and children on a ranch in central California.
