Enbridge has announced that in October, The Seaway Twin will be filled with Canadian oil sands crude from its new 600,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Flanagan South Pipeline. The crude will be brought to North America’s largest refining complex on the US Gulf Coast.
Seaway Twin will carry the crude from Crushing, Oklahoma to oil tanks near Houston. Traders have been closely monitoring the progress of the pipelines, which will give Canadian oil sands producers another direct link option to the Gulf Coast. Currently, Enbridge exports the majority of the Canadian crude to the US though the company’s Mainline system, which this past June moved a record 2.1 million bpd. In recent years Canadian production has been surging and causing congestion pipelines in Alberta. This was why the company decided to undertake a series of expansion projects and consider building a 140,000 crude-by-rail terminal in Illinois.
“Enbridge has layered on C$42 billion (USD$38 billion) of growth projects and is undertaking the largest extension of its liquids pipeline system in decades,” David McColl said. “They are expanding from Fort McMurray, Alberta to the Gulf Coast and to Montreal, and so far they are doing it successfully.”