Dive Transient:

  • The U.S. Military Corps of Engineers has delayed a key allow wanted for Enbridge’s proposed Line 5 oil pipeline alternative mission in Michigan. The company mentioned it requires one other 12 months and a half to check public feedback in regards to the $500 million mission and assess its environmental affect. 
  • The Canadian power firm’s mission entails changing twin 4-mile oil pipelines that run below water between Michigan’s Higher and Decrease Peninsulas with a brand new, tunnel-encased pipeline. The USACE deliberate to publish the draft environmental affect assertion in late 2023, however has now pushed again that date to spring 2025. 
  • Each Enbridge and environmental activists opposing the mission expressed frustration on the lack of choice. If the mission goes forward, the USACE’s transfer successfully pushes the beginning of building to 2026, Enbridge mentioned.

Dive Perception:

Enbridge Vitality’s 645-mile Line 5 pipeline is a part of its Lakehead System, which begins in Superior, Wisconsin, and ends in Sarnia, Canada. Federal approval for the Michigan tunnel, which might be bored into bedrock underwater by means of the Mackinac Straits, is important as a result of the mission entails constructing construction in and discharging supplies into U.S. navigable waters

The corporate had initially promised to finish the construction subsequent 12 months, and expressed frustration in regards to the additional delay. 

“Whereas we’re supportive of an intensive, complete and punctiliously thought of allowing course of that ensures satisfactory alternative for assessment and remark, we’re dissatisfied with the prolonged timeline for a mission of this scope,” Enbridge mentioned in a press launch.

One other barrier to the mission is a lawsuit introduced in June 2019 by Michigan Lawyer Normal Dana Nessel, which seeks to void Enbridge’s use of the 1953 Line 5 easement and finish its use of the present pipelines within the Straits. An earlier 2018 lawsuit has been resolved, in line with the state of Michigan.

The tunnel mission took place because of an accident in 2010, when 21,000 barrels of heavy crude oil spilled from a line owned by Enbridge right into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. It stays one of many largest inland spills in U.S. historical past, in line with the state of Michigan. The spill sparked extra deal with the potential ecological and financial injury that would happen if the Line 5 pipeline working below the Mackinac Straits failed.

Whereas this tunnel mission has seen quite a few delays, different main U.S. oil tasks are transferring forward with the blessing of the Biden administration. 

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden greenlighted a large, multi-billion greenback oil drilling mission in Alaska generally known as Willow, which had garnered fierce pushback from environmentalists. ConocoPhillips, the mission developer and state’s largest oil producer, estimated the construct may create greater than 2,500 building jobs. On Wednesday, the administration introduced it’s auctioning off greater than 73 million acres within the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil and fuel drilling.



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