Canada’s oil pipelines pushing limits with oil sands expansion, says NEB report

A frenzy of oil sands expansion in Alberta has Canada’s National Energy Board worried that the country’s pipeline system is being stretched to the limit.

In its annual report, the board noted that the 172,000 barrel per day Express crude oil line from Alberta to Wyoming, with a link to Chicago, often surpassed its rated capacity in 2004. But the “high rate of capacity utilization on a number of pipelines combined with growing production from the oil sands … has led to several proposals to expand oil pipeline capacity,” the federal regulator said.

One of those new proposals is now before the board, with Enbridge seeking approval for toll subsidies on its Canadian mainline system to recover some of the costs of its plans to initially ship 120,000 bpd of 50/50 light/heavy crude from Alberta into the Spearhead line from Chicago to Cushing, Okla., starting in 2006.

Enbridge, Terasen and TransCanada are also vying for customers to support a variety of pipelines from the oil sands to the U.S. Midwest or the British Columbia coast.

Some estimate oil sands production could grow from 1 million bpd to 3.5 million bpd over the next decade.

—Gary Park