$3.8 Billion Dakota Access Oil Pipeline Begins Service

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline began shipping oil for customers on Thursday, as Native American tribes that opposed the project vowed to continue fighting.
Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners announced that the 1,200-mile line carrying North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to a distribution point in Illinois had begun commercial service. The Dakota Access pipeline and the Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline from Illinois to the Gulf Coast together make up the $4.8 billion Bakken Pipeline system, which ETP said has commitments for about 520,000 barrels of oil daily.
“The pipeline will transport light, sweet crude oil from North Dakota to major refining markets in a more direct, cost-effective, safer and more environmentally responsible manner than other modes of transportation, including rail or truck,” the company said in a statement.
Four Sioux tribes in the Dakotas are still fighting in federal court in Washington, D.C., hoping to persuade a judge to shut down the line. Tribes and environmental groups fear it might pollute water sources. More than half a year of protests in North Dakota resulted in 761 arrests before President Donald Trump’s administration and the courts allowed the pipeline to be completed earlier this year.
“Now that the Dakota Access pipeline is fully operational, we find it more urgent than ever that the courts and administration address the risks posed to the drinking water of millions of American citizens,” Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault said in a statement. “This pipeline became operational today, yet it has already leaked at least three times.”
The leaks came as the line was being prepared for service. The Dakota Access pipeline and a feeder line leaked more than 100 gallons of oil in western North Dakota in separate incidents in March, and the Dakota Access line leaked 84 gallons of oil in northern South Dakota in April. No waterways were affected.
Related News
Related News

- Kinder Morgan Proposes 290-Mile Gas Pipeline Expansion Spanning Three States
- Enbridge Plans 86-Mile Pipeline Expansion, Bringing 850 Workers to Northern B.C.
- Intensity, Rainbow Energy to Build 344-Mile Gas Pipeline Across North Dakota
- Tallgrass to Build New Permian-to-Rockies Pipeline, Targets 2028 Startup with 2.4 Bcf Capacity
- U.S. Moves to Block Enterprise Products’ Exports to China Over Security Risk
- U.S. Pipeline Expansion to Add 99 Bcf/d, Mostly for LNG Export, Report Finds
- A Systematic Approach To Ensuring Pipeline Integrity
- 275-Mile Texas-to-Oklahoma Gas Pipeline Enters Open Season
- TC Energy’s North Baja Pipeline Expansion Brings Mexico Closer to LNG Exports
- Consumers Energy Begins 135-Mile Michigan Gas Pipeline Upgrade, Taps 600 Workers
Comments