Northern crude line up for sale

A 40-year-old crude oil pipeline some think might have had a strategic role to play in carrying natural gas liquids from Canada’s Arctic region has been offered for sale by three of the four corporate partners in the Mackenzie Gas Project.

Sister companies Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil, along with Royal Dutch Shell, have hired CIBC World Markets to market the 200,000 barrel per day Rainbow pipeline in northern Alberta.

The line covers 470 miles from Zama in northwestern Alberta to Edmonton, where it feeds into Enbridge’s pipeline network to the U.S. Midwest and eastern Canada, as well as Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain line to the Greater Vancouver area and Washington state refineries.

Imperial, acting as spokesman for the owners, did not put a price tag on the pipeline or explain why the asset was being unloaded. However, some observers think declining conventional oil production in Western Canada is likely a key reason.

There were also those who thought the Rainbow pipeline could have been the final link in delivering gas liquids from the Mackenzie Delta to market.

Currently, Enbridge is viewed as the frontrunner to build and operate a liquids line from the Delta to Norman Wells, where it would tie in with an underutilized crude system to Zama.

—Gary Park