© Mark Blinch/Reuters
After more than two years of slogging through Minnesota's regulatory process,
Canadian oil company Enbridge is giving up the ghost of the Sandpiper Pipeline Project. The energy giant asked the state to pull the plug on the pipeline.
On Thursday, Enbridge Energy Partners (EEP) filed documents asking Minnesota to end regulatory proceedings for the Sandpiper Pipeline Project, which called for the
construction of a 616-mile (991-km) crude oil pipeline that would have carried
375,000 barrels per day from the Bakken Fields near Tioga, North Dakota, across Minnesota and to Superior, Wisconsin. It was expected to cost nearly $2.6 billion, which would have been privately funded.
EEP "will be
withdrawing regulatory applications pending with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission for the Sandpiper Pipeline Project," the company said in a statement, adding that it "has completed a review of Sandpiper and concluded that the
project should be delayed until such time as crude oil production in North Dakota recovers sufficiently to support development of new pipeline capacity." That capacity won't likely be needed for at least five years, EEP predicted. If and when it is needed, the company will have to start the regulatory process from scratch ‒ something EEP has long criticized, according to the
Minneapolis Star Tribune.
"
Extensive and unprecedented regulatory delays and procedural irregularities have plagued the Sandpiper project since applications were filed nearly three years ago," EEP President Mark Maki told reporters.
"The business, competitive and market environment is very different now than it was at the time when we applied for regulatory approval of the Sandpiper project back in 2013."
Comment: This game has a dual purpose: sowing distrust among the populace, thereby decreasing the likelihood of organized resistance and self censorship (and the resultant decline in information sharing) for fear of reprisal from the state.