Future hazy for $2.6B Sandpiper oil pipeline project

The future is unclear for a proposed Enbridge oil pipeline that would cross northern Minnesota after the company this week announced it’s investing in a different project that would transport North Dakota crude oil.

The Calgary company has proposed the $2.6-billion Sandpiper pipeline; it would run from the Bakken oilfields through Minnesota to a terminal in Wisconsin.

Enbridge and Houston-based Marathon Petroleum, a key partner in Sandpiper, are forming a joint venture to buy a stake in the Bakken Pipeline project that would transport oil from North Dakota across the Midwest to Gulf Coast refineries.

Once the new Bakken pipeline deal is complete, Enbridge and Marathon will end their transportation and joint venture agreements regarding Sandpiper and will evaluate the scope and timing of the project, Enbridge said in a statement.

Graham White, an Enbridge spokesman, said there may be demand for Sandpiper in the future, as production grows.

In February, Enbridge said it expected to push back the startup date for Sandpiper to 2019.

The pipeline proposal is going through the Minnesota regulatory process.

Environmentalists contend it would threaten ecologically sensitive areas.

Late last year, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission ordered a full environmental impact review of Sandpiper.

Enbridge has said the state’s regulatory process is delaying Sandpiper and another project, a replacement pipeline to carry Canadian crude oil across northern Minnesota.

“My guess, and it’s just a guess at this point, is that Sandpiper is not built in the near term while they take a stake in this (Bakken) pipeline,” Steven Paget, an analyst with First Energy Capital in Calgary, told Minnesota Public Radio News.