Portland–Montreal pipeline

Last updated
Portland–Montreal Pipe Line
Portlandpipeline.JPG
Portland Pipeline marine terminal in South Portland, ME
Portland-montreal.JPG
Map of Portland–Montreal Pipe Line
Location
CountryUnited States
Canada
From South Portland, Maine, United States
To Montreal, Quebec, Canada
General information
Type Crude oil
OperatorPortland Pipe Line Corporation (in the United States)
Montreal Pipe Line Limited (in Canada)
Commissioned1941
Technical information
Length236 mi (380 km)
Diameter24 in (610 mm)

The Portland Montreal Pipeline is a series of underground crude oil pipelines connecting South Portland, Maine, in the United States with Montreal, Quebec, in Canada. As of early 2016, the pipeline transports limited volumes, [1] sufficient to keep the pipeline wet. The pipeline also supplied crude oil to the Suncor Montreal-Est refinery during supply interruptions due to the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfires. [2] [3]

Contents

History

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable and a Vermont State Police trooper stand on the border before the official ceremony commemorating the joining of the pipeline. Canada US pipeline border.jpg
A Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable and a Vermont State Police trooper stand on the border before the official ceremony commemorating the joining of the pipeline.

The pipeline traces its history to the early years of World War II when oil shipments to Canada were severely disrupted by the Kriegsmarine during the Battle of the St. Lawrence and the larger Battle of the Atlantic. In order to safely transport oil to central Canada, a pipeline was proposed to connect the relatively secure Port of Portland in Maine with refineries in Montreal.

The marine terminal was built on the south side of the Fore River in the city of South Portland immediately downstream of the Portland Terminal Company's railroad bridge over the river. The pipeline route from Portland to Montreal was mostly built alongside the existing right of way for the Portland - Montreal rail line which was owned at that time by the Canadian National Railways (CNR) and called the CNR's Berlin Subdivision. This rail line was built in the 1850s by the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railroad which was purchased by the Grand Trunk Railway shortly after completion. The Grand Trunk Railway encountered financial difficulties after World War I, and the company was nationalized by the Government of Canada in 1923 with its properties merged into the CNR.

Construction of the original pipeline was finished in 1941, and the transportation of oil to Montreal began. The pipeline originally consisted of three separate pipes, which crossed through the same common right-of-way. The third and smallest pipe was decommissioned in 1982. Up until 2016, two pipes operated after they underwent renovation. Since it has been in service, the pipeline has pumped over 5 billion barrels (790,000,000 m3) of oil to Montreal refineries. [4] The pipeline was the primary reason that the Port of Portland had the largest volume oil port on the Eastern Seaboard, as more than 200 tankers delivered oil to the pipeline marine terminal annually. [5]

In January 2016, the pipeline flow was slowed to a trickle. Its volume had been decreasing for several years. The completion of a major pipeline project connecting the Montreal refineries to Alberta oil sands and Bakken light sweet crude sources and the closure of the Shell Montreal-Est refinery made oil transportation from Maine unnecessary. According to consulting firm Turner, Mason & Co., "there is no need to move crude oil from Portland to Montreal. That is a permanent change." Any future use of the pipeline would be in the other direction. [1] The pipeline continues to see some use. [6]

Details

Oil is transported by oil tankers to South Portland, where it was pumped ashore to a 100-acre (0.40 km2) tank farm along South Portland's waterfront. The facility includes 23 oil tanks and a capacity of 3.5 million barrels (560,000 m3) of crude oil. The oil was then pumped through two separate pipelines, one of which is 18 inches (460 mm) in diameter and the other of which is 24 inches (610 mm) in diameter. [7] The pipeline extends 236 miles (380 km), 3 feet (0.91 m) beneath the surface, and has several pump stations distributed throughout the line. The pipeline crosses into the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont, eventually passing under the St. Lawrence River, extending into Montreal. From South Portland to Montreal, it took between 36 and 43 hours for the oil to reach its destination for refining. [8]

There is a third decommissioned line, 12 inches (300 mm) in diameter. Lines not being used are filled with nitrogen, an inert gas. [9]

Expansion and line reversal proposal

The Portland Pipe Line Corporation/Montreal Pipe Line Limited announced in February 2008 that it was studying a proposal to expand and/or reverse the flow of the Portland–Montreal Pipe Line. Crude oil reserves are undergoing increased development in western Canada, namely raw bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands deposit. The pipeline owner alleges that the proposed plan would open up international markets to Canadian petroleum companies and would require an estimated $100 million in modifications to the pipeline and South Portland marine terminal facilities. [10]

South Portland Clear Skies Ordinance

A citizen-led initiative in August 2013 submitted a proposed city ordinance to the South Portland city council, via a petition. The "Waterfront Protection Ordinance" aimed to ban future Canadian oil sands products from a reversed pipeline from being exported through the city's port. The city council voted against enacting the ordinance, which forced it to a public referendum that November. [11] Five of the seven councilors opposed the ordinance as being too broad. [12] [13] Despite the support of South Portland mayor Tom Blake, the measure was narrowly defeated in the ballot. [14]

A revised version known as the "Clear Skies Ordinance" was created by a Draft Ordinance Committee, supported by citizen group Protect South Portland. It was passed by city council in July 2014. The ordinance prohibits the bulk loading of crude oil onto tankers in South Portland, where the pipeline terminates. Tom Hardison, vice-president of the Portland Pipe Line Corp., characterized it as a "biased process" and a "vote against jobs, energy and the waterfront". [15]

The Bangor Daily News had reported that "while several cities and towns along the pipeline have adopted nonbinding resolutions protesting the movement of the bituminous oil through their communities, the South Portland ordinance is viewed as the only measure that could actually prevent it." [11]

Danielle Droitsch, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the Clear Skies Ordinance would be "very significant" in the fight against oil sands bitumen. The city received a letter from the American Petroleum Institute, a major lobby group, indicating that vigorous legal challenges would be made to overturn it. The oil industry had spent approximately US$650,000 in the fight to defeat the original ordinance. [16]

In February 2015, Portland Pipe Line Co. (PPLC) filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to overturn the ordinance as being unconstitutional, and interfering with interstate and international trade. [17] The District Court ruled against PPLC, and PPLC abandoned its appeal of that ruling in July 2021. Since the transport of oil from Maine to Quebec has been stopped, the pipeline is likely to remain inoperational unless the ordinance is overturned. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pipeline</span> Pumping fluids or gas through pipes

A pipeline is a system of pipes for long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas, typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than 2,175,000 miles (3,500,000 km) of pipeline in 120 countries around the world. The United States had 65%, Russia had 8%, and Canada had 3%, thus 76% of all pipeline were in these three countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oil sands</span> Type of unconventional oil deposit

Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitumen, or bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen, a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petroleum product</span> Products ultimately derived from crude oil

Petroleum products are materials derived from crude oil (petroleum) as it is processed in oil refineries. Unlike petrochemicals, which are a collection of well-defined usually pure organic compounds, petroleum products are complex mixtures. Most petroleum is converted into petroleum products, which include several classes of fuels.

The Enbridge Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system which transports crude oil and dilbit from Canada to the United States. The system exceeds 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi) in length including multiple paths. More than 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) of the system is in the United States while the rest is in Canada and serves the Athabasca oil sands production facilities. Main parts of the system are 2,306-kilometre-long (1,433 mi) Canadian Mainline and 3,057-kilometre-long (1,900 mi) Lakehead System. On average, it delivers 1.4 million barrels per day of crude oil and other products to the major oil refineries in the American Midwest and the Canadian province of Ontario. The Canadian portion is owned by Enbridge, while the U.S. portion is partly owned by that company through Enbridge Energy Partners, LP, formerly known as Lakehead Pipe Line Partners and Lakehead Pipe Line Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petroleum industry in Canada</span>

Petroleum production in Canada is a major industry which is important to the overall economy of North America. Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world and is the world's fourth largest oil producer and fourth largest oil exporter. In 2019 it produced an average of 750,000 cubic metres per day (4.7 Mbbl/d) of crude oil and equivalent. Of that amount, 64% was upgraded from unconventional oil sands, and the remainder light crude oil, heavy crude oil and natural-gas condensate. Most of the Canadian petroleum production is exported, approximately 600,000 cubic metres per day (3.8 Mbbl/d) in 2019, with 98% of the exports going to the United States. Canada is by far the largest single source of oil imports to the United States, providing 43% of US crude oil imports in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Port of Portland (Maine)</span> Seaport district in Portland, Maine, USA

The Port of Portland is a seaport located in Portland, Maine. It is the second-largest tonnage seaport in New England as well as one of the largest oil ports on the East Coast. It is the primary American port of call for Icelandic shipping company Eimskip.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the petroleum industry in Canada (oil sands and heavy oil)</span>

Canada's oil sands and heavy oil resources are among the world's great petroleum deposits. They include the vast oil sands of northern Alberta, and the heavy oil reservoirs that surround the small city of Lloydminster, which sits on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. The extent of these resources is well known, but better technologies to produce oil from them are still being developed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keystone Pipeline</span> Oil pipeline in North America

The Keystone Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, commissioned in 2010 and owned by TC Energy and, as of March 2020, the Government of Alberta. It runs from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta to refineries in Illinois and Texas, and also to oil tank farms and an oil pipeline distribution center in Cushing, Oklahoma.

Petroleum transport is the transportation of petroleum and derivatives such as gasoline (petrol). Petroleum products are transported via rail cars, trucks, tanker vessels, and pipeline networks. The method used to move the petroleum products depends on the volume that is being moved and its destination. Even the modes of transportation on land such as pipeline or rail have their own strengths and weaknesses. One of the key differences are the costs associated with transporting petroleum though pipeline or rail. The biggest problems with moving petroleum products are pollution related and the chance of spillage. Petroleum oil is very hard to clean up and is very toxic to living animals and their surroundings.

The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines were a planned-but-never-built project for a twin pipeline from Bruderheim, Alberta, to Kitimat, British Columbia. The project was active from the mid-2000s to 2016. The eastbound pipeline would have imported natural gas condensate, and the westbound pipeline would have exported diluted bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands to a marine terminal in Kitimat for transportation to Asian markets via oil tankers. The project would have also included terminal facilities with "integrated marine infrastructure at tidewater to accommodate loading and unloading of oil and condensate tankers, and marine transportation of oil and condensate." The CA$7.9 billion project was first proposed in the mid-2000s but was postponed several times. The project plan was developed by Enbridge Inc., a Canadian crude oil and liquids pipeline and storage company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kirkuk–Haifa oil pipeline</span> Oil pipeline that ran between Iraq and the British Mandate of Palestine from 1935 to 1948

The Kirkuk–Haifa oil pipeline was a crude oil pipeline from the oil fields in Kirkuk, located in the former Ottoman vilayet of Mosul in northern Iraq, through Transjordan to Haifa in mandatory Palestine. The pipeline was operational between 1935 and 1948. Its length was about 942 kilometres (585 mi), with a diameter of 12 inches (300 mm), and it took about 10 days for crude oil to travel the full length of the line. The oil arriving in Haifa was distilled in the Haifa refineries, stored in tanks, and then put in tankers for shipment to Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irving Oil Refinery</span> Canadian oil refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick

The Irving Oil Refinery is a Canadian oil refinery located in Saint John, New Brunswick. It is currently the largest oil refinery in Canada, capable of producing more than 320,000 barrels (51,000 m3) of refined products per day. Over 80 per cent of the production is exported to the United States, accounting for 19 per cent of the country's gasoline imports and 75 per cent of Canada's gasoline exports to the US.

The Seaway Crude Pipeline System (SCPS), commonly known as the Seaway Pipeline, is an oil pipeline system which transports crude oil between Cushing, Oklahoma and Freeport, Texas, and through the Texas City, Texas Terminal and Distribution System on the Gulf Coast of the United States. The Seaway is an important crude oil transfer link between two petroleum regions within the United States.

Western Canadian Select (WCS) is a heavy sour blend of crude oil that is one of North America's largest heavy crude oil streams and, historically, its cheapest. It was established in December 2004 as a new heavy oil stream by EnCana (now Cenovus), Canadian Natural Resources, Petro-Canada (now Suncor) and Talisman Energy (now Repsol Oil & Gas Canada). It is composed mostly of bitumen blended with sweet synthetic and condensate diluents and 21 existing streams of both conventional and unconventional Alberta heavy crude oils at the large Husky Midstream General Partnership terminal in Hardisty, Alberta. Western Canadian Select—the benchmark for heavy, acidic (TAN <1.1) crudes—is one of many petroleum products from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin oil sands. Calgary-based Husky Energy, now a subsidiary of Cenovus, had joined the initial four founders in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trans Mountain pipeline</span> Oil pipeline in southwestern Canada

The Trans Mountain Pipeline System, or simply the Trans Mountain Pipeline(TMPL), is a multiple product pipeline system that carries crude and refined products from Edmonton, Alberta, to the coast of British Columbia, Canada.

Washington state has the fifth highest oil refining capacity of any state. As of 2018, there are 5 refineries in Washington state with a joint capacity of 637,700 b/d. They are, in order of greatest b/d capacity, Cherry Point refinery, Puget Sound refinery, Marathon Anacortes refinery, Ferndale refinery and U.S. Oil refinery.

<i>Portland Pipe Line Corp. v. City of South Portland</i>

Portland Pipe Line Corp. v. City of South Portland is a lawsuit filed on February 6, 2015, in the United States District Court for the District of Maine. It involved a pipeline operator's challenge to South Portland, Maine's local ordinance prohibiting loading crude oil onto tankers and the construction of new structures for that purpose on the grounds that it violates the dormant Commerce Clause and Foreign Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

The Teesside oil terminal is a major crude oil reception, processing, storage and export facility at Seal Sands, Middlesbrough. It receives and processes crude oil delivered by the subsea NORPIPE pipeline from the Norwegian Ekofisk field and the UK Fulmar and J-Block fields. The terminal includes facilities for exporting stabilised crude oil and liquefied petroleum gases (LPG) by tanker and pipeline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British American Oil Company</span>

The British American Oil Company Limited was a Canadian integrated petroleum company that operated between 1906 and 1969. British American was founded in Toronto in 1906 by Albert Leroy Ellsworth (1876–1950). By the 1950s, the Gulf Oil Corporation of Pittsburgh had become British American's controlling shareholder. In 1956 Gulf merged its Canadian subsidiary, the Canadian Gulf Oil Company, with British American using the latter's name. In 1969 British American amalgamed with its subsidiaries into a new company called Gulf Oil Canada Limited. After several name changes ending at Gulf Canada Resources Limited, the company was acquired in 2001 by Conoco, becoming Conoco Canada Resources Limited.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Tom Bell (March 8, 2016). "South Portland-to-Montreal crude oil pipeline shut down". The Portland Press Herald . Associated Press . Retrieved May 20, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Oil flowed from South Portland again this summer. But it probably won't last". 25 August 2016.
  3. ↑ "South Portland struggles with identity as city's population evolves". 12 March 2017.
  4. ↑ "About Us". Portland Pipe Line Corporation / Montreal Pipe Line Limited. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Pipeline pondering flow change". Portland Press Herald . Archived from the original on 2012-07-19.
  6. ↑ marinetraffic.com - Phoenix Alpha arrives at terminal April 4, 2018
  7. ↑ "Neighbor's Guide". Portland Pipe Line Corporation / Montreal Pipe Line Limited. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
  8. ↑ Holmquist, Wayne R. "The Portland Pipeline". Raymond-Casco Historical Society. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
  9. ↑ Braithwaite, Chris (September 28, 2011). "Exposed pipeline is safe, company says". The Chronicle. Barton, Vermont. p. 3.
  10. ↑ MaineToday.com | News Update: Firm will study bringing oil from Canada Archived 2012-07-15 at archive.today
  11. 1 2 Seth Koenig (August 19, 2013). "South Portland becomes ground zero for Maine tar sands debate; new rules headed for vote". Bangor Daily News . Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  12. ↑ David Harry (August 20, 2013). "Tar sands ban goes to November ballot in South Portland". The Forecaster . Retrieved May 20, 2016.
  13. ↑ Harry, David (October 24, 2013). "South Portland waterfront ordinance: Tar sands shield, or oil industry silver bullet?". The Forecaster . Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  14. ↑ Whit Richardson (November 5, 2013). "South Portland narrowly rejects attempt to ban 'tar sands oil' from waterfront". Bangor Daily News . Retrieved May 18, 2016.
  15. ↑ Bouchard, Kelley (July 22, 2014). "South Portland approves law barring tar sands oil". Portland Press Herald . Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  16. ↑ Neela Banerjee (July 21, 2014). "Maine town fights plan to use pipeline to export oil sands crude". LA Times . Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  17. ↑ Duke Harrington (February 13, 2015). "South Portland sued over tar sands ban". South Portland Sentry. Retrieved May 20, 2016.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.