PLUMMER, Minn. -- Travelers along Red Lake County Road 1 just east of here might wonder if the gigantic tent that went up this winter is some sort of modern-day revival of the old Big Top Circus.
Actually, the tent is a protective covering for work crews who are building a new pumping station. It's part of a $200 million project to increase capacity on Enbridge Energy Partners' Alberta Clipper -- also known as Line 67 -- pipeline, which moves heavy crude oil from the tar sands region of Alberta to Superior, Wis.
No new pipelines are being built as part of the project.
In all, this new phase of the Alberta Clipper expansion project includes four new pumping stations and the expansion of three others in Minnesota.
The pipeline is about 1,000 miles long, entering the U.S. near Neche, N.D., and extending about 327 miles to Superior, Wis., including about 290 miles across the northern Minnesota counties of Kittson, Marshall, Polk, Pennington, Red Lake, Clearwater, Beltrami, Hubbard, Cass, Itasca, Aitkin, St. Louis and Carlton.
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The Alberta Clipper began operating in 2010, at a capacity of 450,000 barrels per day.
Phase 1 of the present project, which was completed this past fall, increased the line's capacity to 570,000 barrels per day.
Phase 2, which began in November, will boost it to 800,000 barrels per day.
To accomplish that feat, a new pump station is being built in Plummer to house three 6,000-horsepower pumps, according to Nathan Graeme, project manager.
"The pump station building will be 40 feet in the air," he said.
Once that building is completed, the fabric-covered tent will be removed.
The project also includes new pump stations at Enbridge facilities at Donaldson, Cass Lake and Floodwood, Minn., as well as improvements at other existing pump stations, according to Becky Haase, an Enbridge spokeswoman.
Pump stations are approximately 40 miles apart, according to Haase.
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Phase 2 construction is scheduled to be completed by late summer, although the company is targeting July 31 or earlier, according to A.J. Johnson, chief inspector on the project. The updated pipeline could be operational by the fall, according to Haase.
Although no new pipelines are involved, it is subject to some of the regulatory permitting necessary for new pipelines, including TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would take the Alberta oil south through Montana and South Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico, or Enbridge's Sandpiper pipeline, which is still undergoing Minnesota Public Utilities Commission review. The Sandpiper, when and if approved, would involve boosting the capacity of the 36-inch diameter pipeline through pumping and other improvements to move light crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken formation to Superior.
