Minnesota Pipeline System

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Minnesota Pipeline System (MPL) is an oil pipeline in Minnesota, the United States.

Location

The pipeline runs from Clearbrook, Minnesota, to Twin Cities refineries in Saint Paul Park and Rosemount, Minnesota.

Project details

Lines 1–3

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• Operator: Koch Industries
• Owner: Minnesota Pipe Line Company LLC
• Parent company: Koch Industries
• Capacity: 300,000 bpd collective capacity
• Length: 256 miles (3 parallel lines)
• Diameter: 16 in
• Status: Operating
• Start Year: 1954 (Line 1); 1970s (Line 2); 1980s (Line 3)
  • Also reported as 1950s, 1960s, 1970s

MinnCan Pipeline (Line 4)

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• Operator:
• Owner: Minnesota Pipe Line Company LLC
• Parent company: Koch Industries
• Capacity: 165,000 bpd
• Length: 303.6 mi
• Diameter: 24 in
• Status: Operating
• Start year: 2008

Background

The Minnesota Pipe Line (MPL) is a crude oil pipeline that runs from Clearbrook, Minnesota southward to the Twin Cities. The State of Minnesota approved the building permit in 2007 and construction began that year and ended in 2008. It is owned by Minnesota Pipe Line Company, LLC (MPL) and is operated by Koch Industries.

The MPL system has four lines in total. The first pipeline in the MPL system was established in the 1950s, and the last pipeline was constructed in 2008. The crude oil comes from North American sources including Canada and North Dakota and is delivered to refineries in St. Paul Park and Rosemount, Minnesota. MPL is the primary pipeline system that supplies crude oil to the two Twin Cities refineries.

Route and capacity

All four of the Minnesota Pipe Line Co. lines begin at the Clearbrook terminal, and is largely supplied by Enbridge Energy's pipeline system that carries crude from North dakota and Alberta, Canada. The Minnesota Pipeline System splits into two parts at a junction in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. One branch serves the Pine Bend Refinery owned by Flint Hills Resources (another Koch subsidiary) in Rosemount. The other portion of the line runs to Northern Tier Energy's St. Paul Park Refinery in St. Paul Park, Minnesota. There is a connection at the Pine Bend Refinery to the Wood River Pipeline, which carries crude oil from the St. Louis, Missouri area to Minnesota.

In 2008 Minnesota Pipe Line completed a parallel 24-inch (610 mm) line to expand the pipeline capacity from Clearbrook to the Twin Cities by 165,000 barrels per day (26,200 m3/d), with the ultimate potential expansion to 350,000 barrels per day (56,000 m3/d).

Expansion projects

Line 4 Reliability Project

• Operator:
• Owner: Minnesota Pipe Line Company LLC
• Parent company: Minnesota Pipe Line Company LLC
• Capacity: 185,000 bpd
• Length: 0 new miles
• Status: Cancelled (2019)
• Start year: 2017
• Cost: US$125 million

The expansion was announced in 2014. Minnesota Pipe Line said it will more than double the capacity of the MinnCan Pipeline (Line 4) to 350,000 barrels per day by adding six pump stations along the route.

The Minnesota Pipe Line reliability project will use available capacity on the MPL system’s newest pipeline—Line 4—to ensure the overall reliability of the pipeline system. The project includes adding six pump stations to MPL Line 4 and upgrading existing stations. This will allow the pipeline to operate at its original design capacity of approximately 350,000 barrels of crude oil per day when needed to meet demand. Before this MPL 4 was configured to transport about 165,000 barrels per day.

This project would help ensure that refineries producing the majority of Minnesota’s transportation fuels continue to have access to sufficient and reliable crude supplies. Once the project were complete, MPL would have the flexibility to shift capacity to MPL 4 in the event of an outage on other segments of the pipeline system. In addition, this project would allow MPL to conduct maintenance on other segments of the pipeline system as needed without disrupting crude supplies to the Twin Cities market. As pipelines age, they require more frequent inspections and maintenance. This project is an estimated $125 million investment. No new pipeline would be installed and no new pipeline right-of-way would be acquired for this project.

Public hearings occurred in 2015. As of 2019, there was no evidence for further development of the project, and its website is not updated. It is therefore considered cancelled. Despite one reference noting this expansion appears to be operating, it is still considered cancelled given lack of additional evidence to confirm this.

Articles and resources

External articles

Wikipedia also has an article on Minnesota Pipeline System. This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the GFDL.