Canadian midstream company Enbridge has announced an investment of C$2bn ($1.3bn) to upgrade its Mainline network through 2028.
The Mainline, claimed to be Canada’s largest oil transportation system, is crucial for ensuring a reliable energy supply for North American consumers.
The Mainline network includes the Canadian Mainline system, which consists of multiple pipelines extending from Edmonton to the Canada-US border at Gretna, Manitoba.
It also includes the Lakehead System, or US Mainline, which continues to Clearbrook, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin, delivering crude to markets in northern Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and southern Ontario.
Additional Enbridge market access pipelines serve regions in the US Gulf Coast, Oklahoma, southern Illinois and Quebec.
The investment in the Mainline system will support the increasing need for ratable egress out of Alberta. It will also maximise existing operating capacity, allowing the company’s customers have better path to deliver their product to market.
In addition to the Mainline investment, Enbridge has earmarked C$400m for the Birch Grove expansion, a 179 million cubic feet per day (mcf/d) increase in the T-North section of its Westcoast Pipeline.
This expansion, expected to be operational by 2028, will boost T-North’s capacity to 3.7 billion cubic feet per day, supplying customers in northern British Columbia and supporting LNG exports from Canada’s west coast.
Enbridge has also approved a C$100m expansion of the T15 project in North Carolina.
This expansion, which involves additional compression, will double the project’s capacity, supplying Duke Energy’s Roxboro plant with 510mcf/d of natural gas.
Both phases of the T15 expansion are projected to cost a total of C$700m and are expected to be operational by 2027 or 2028.
Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel said: “In combination with the $8bn of projects we sanctioned in 2024, Enbridge’s secured growth now sits at $29bn. We expect to place approximately $23bn of that secured backlog into service through 2027 and the remainder is slated to enter service through 2029.”
In October of last year, Enbridge, alongside Shell, announced separate initiatives to construct pipelines for bp’s Kaskida oil project in the US Gulf of Mexico.
Enbridge’s dual pipeline system will facilitate the transportation of crude oil and natural gas, while Shell’s Rome Pipeline will export oil from the Kaskida hub.
