Energy Transfer Partners LP has launched a binding expansion open season to boost capacity on a planned pipeline system that would move oil from the Bakken and Three Forks shales in North Dakota to the Midwest and Gulf Coast.
ETP is seeking to increase capacity on the proposed pipeline system to 450,000 b/d from 320,000 b/d. By comparison, North Dakota produced 1.13 million b/d of oil in August.
The system is slated to carry crude from strategic receipt points in the Bakken-Three Forks production area in northwest North Dakota to refining and terminalling hubs in the Midwest and Gulf Coast.
"They do have the shipper support to move forward so, right now, they're just working with the landowners along the route of the pipeline-they will be trying to secure some easements and some finalized route determinations before going to each individual state to get that route approval," Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, said in mid-October.
The first leg of the system calls for constructing the 1,100-mi. Dakota Access pipeline. The line would originate in northwest North Dakota and pass through South Dakota and Iowa, finally terminating near Patoka, Ill.
The second leg of the system is the 850-mile Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline. That line would originate in Patoka, Ill., cross through Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and terminate at the crude oil terminalling facilities of Sunoco Logistics Partners LP in Nederland, Tex.