Eye on Energy: Enbridge Expanding - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Eye on Energy: Enbridge Expanding

The announcement last week that Enbridge Pipelines will be partnering with Berthold Farmers Elevator to ship oil out of the Bakken region by rail is the latest move by the crude moving company to become an even bigger player in the oil boom.

As Perry Olson shows us in tonight's Eye on Energy, Enbridge is getting close to having the ability to pump the same amount of oil out of the region as is produced on a day-to-day basis.

Daily production of oil in North Dakota is growing rapidly. In January of this year, about 550-thousand barrels per day came up...now -- the number is about 650-thousand...and the projections are incredible...

(Matt Faith - Enbridge Minot Manager) "It is sometimes easy to go past that 800K barrels number and say, oh it is 800K.  That is an insane amount of production and just points that this is the hottest play in North America."

That puts Enbridge in the right spot on the map to boom right with the oil play.  Current infrastructure can move about 355 thousand barrels...more than 50 percent of what is produced today...

(Kelly Wilkins - Enbridge Pipelines) "If you compare that to the 650K barrels per day of production in North Dakota it is a significant part of the solution and when you add the rail to it we get to 475K barrels a day."

The rail project in production here at Berthold does indeed jump Enbridge's ability to ship oil to refineries elsewhere...with benefits galore...

(Kevin Cramer - ND PSC Member) "Every barrel that isn't trucked is piped and that saves on the wear and tear on the highways, is a safety measure, and is efficient."  (Matt Faith - Enbridge Manager) "The great about this facility is that you can deliver anywhere in ND to an Enbridge facility and we can load it on a train with Dan and Randy and that will reduce the trucks on the road.  That is a great thing to think about as a resident of North Dakota."

And with more pipeline projects in the works at Enbridge, few trucks may be needed in the future as the company grows with the boom surrounding it...the latest being the rail facility...

(Matt Faith - Enbridge Manager) "Pipelines and railroads have always worked really well together, in the 50s...and now we are at a point and time where they are working together well again.  It is crazy that the more things change the more they stay the same."

With your Eye on Energy, Perry Olson, KX News.