Pipeline reversal aims to ease glut, boost gulf access

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Source: Wash. Post

Despite the Obama administration’s move to delay a decision over the Keystone XL pipeline permit, a swirl of activity continued Wednesday over new ways to circumvent or revive the controversial pipeline.

Enbridge, a Canadian company, announced that it will purchase a half-interest in a U.S. crude oil pipeline that runs from the Gulf of Mexico coast to Cushing, Okla., and will reverse the flow to carry more oil from Canada’s oil sands and the U.S. Bakken field to refineries in Texas.

The plan would do part of what the controversial Keystone XL pipeline would do, easing a bottleneck in Cushing, a hub where the New York Mercantile Exchange prices the benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil.

The announcement of the deal Wednesday drove up the price of WTI crude for December delivery to $102.59 a barrel, up 3.2 percent. Because of the glut of crude oil in Cushing, there has been an unusually large gap between U.S. prices for oil and the higher price of Brent crude, the international and more widely used benchmark traded in London.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/pipeline-reversal-aims-to-ease-glut-boost-gulf-access/2011/11/16/gIQAsqzjSN_story.html