Investor Call: Enbridge's Keystone XL Clone Opens in October, Rail Facility to Follow

In a recent quarter two call for investors, Enbridge Inc executives said the company’s “Keystone XL” clone — the combination of the Flanagan South and Seaway Twin pipelines — will open for business by October.

As previously reported by DeSmogBlog, Enbridge has committed a “silent coup” of sorts, ushering in its own Alberta to Port Arthur, Texas pipeline system “clone” of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Unlike Keystone XL’s northern leg, however, Enbridge has done so with little debate. 

With the combination of the Alberta Clipper (now called Line 67, currently up for expansion), Flanagan South and Seaway Twin pipelines, Enbridge will soon do what TransCanada has done via its Keystone Pipeline System.

That is, bring Alberta’s tar sands to Gulf of Mexico refineries and send it off to the global export market.

According to Guy Jarvis, president of liquids pipelines for Enbridge, even though the Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas Seaway Twin is technically operational, it will not become functional until Flanagan South opens in October. 

“The base plan had been, and still is, to do the line fill of the Seaway Twin from Flanagan South. So we don’t expect to see too much off the Seaway Twin until Flanagan South does go into service,” Jarvis said on the investor call.

“It does have the capability to be line filled at Cushing if the barrels are available and the market signals would suggest that you would want to do that. But at this point in time, we think it will be the base plan that it is filled on from Flanagan South.”

Beyond piping diluted bitumen (“dilbit”) to market, Enbridge also has plans to market dilbit via rail in a big way.

All Aboard Enbridge’s Tar Sands-By-Rail