Enbridge's Great Lakes to Gulf Coast series (Part 2)
Six lines in, five lines out.
More than 40 storage tanks, with a capacity of more than 10 million barrels.
About 2.3-million barrels of crude oil arriving each day from Western Canada and the Bakken, and moving on to refineries at points south and east, continuing to fuel North America’s quality of life.
Enbridge’s Superior Terminal was built on the shore of Lake Superior back in 1950, with one incoming line and a ship-loading dock to receive Western Canadian oil and prepare it for transport via the Great Lakes waterway.
Superior Terminal, in Superior, Wis., hasn’t moved an inch – but in 65 years, it’s come a long, long way.
After constant growth through the decades, the 450-acre Superior Terminal has become a crucial hub for safe, reliable crude oil transportation across the United States – with about 15 per cent of all daily U.S. crude imports passing through our facility. And there’s room to grow yet.
“Superior, like our Flanagan Terminal (in Pontiac, Ill.) and our Cushing Terminal (in Cushing, Okla.), has become a key node in our pipeline transportation system,” notes Brad Shamla, the vice president of U.S. operations for Enbridge’s Liquids Pipelines division.
“If you look at the airline industry, they develop hubs to increase flexibility. At some of our major facilities, such as Superior Terminal, we have the ability to flow the product in and out via different lines to different destinations,” he says. “Ultimately, that multi-pipeline system means flexibility and reliability – and that’s only possible with facilities like Superior, Flanagan, Cushing, and other major terminals along the Enbridge system.”
Together, the recent opening of Enbridge’s $2.8-billion Flanagan South pipeline and the twinning of the Seaway Pipeline represent North America’s first large-volume, full-path solution for safely and reliably delivering Western Canadian crude to the heavy-oil-hungry refining market in the Houston area.
At the same time, we’re forging ahead with expansion projects in the Upper Midwest, as we continue to build out much-needed pipeline infrastructure across the continent. Many of those projects – the Line 61 Expansion Project in Wisconsin and Illinois, the Sandpiper project and the Line 3 Replacement Program in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin – will require greater transportation and storage capacity at Superior Terminal.
Accordingly, our Superior Terminal capacity expansion aims to add three new above-ground storage tanks, which are expected to be complete by 2016, pending regulatory approval, and will push the facility’s overall storage capacity to about 11.4-million barrels.
At the same time, there’s a public awareness and education component that goes hand-in-glove with expansion, says Superior Terminal electrical maintenance team lead Craig Noble.
“We put all of our people through a public awareness training program. That way, our people become ambassadors for Enbridge through word of mouth – we tell people who we are, what we do, and stress the fact that safety is our No. 1 priority,” says Noble.
“From maintenance staff who don’t even leave this tank farm, all the way to the top of the company, Enbridge has a mandate to educate us so we can go out and speak to people with proper knowledge of what we’re doing.”
