Lakehead System
Our Lakehead System, which is the U.S. portion of the longest petroleum pipeline in the world, has operated for 56 years and is the primary transporter of crude oil from Western Canada to the United States. It serves all the major refining centers in the Great Lakes and Midwest regions of the United States and Ontario, Canada. Through connections with Enbridge affiliates and other pipelines, this system has increasing access to refineries in the Mid-Continent and Gulf Coast.
Total deliveries on our Lakehead System averaged 1.52 million Bpd in 2006, meeting approximately 71 percent of refinery demand in Minnesota; 62 percent in the greater Chicago area; and 82 percent in Ontario. As Midwest refinery demand for crude oil increases along with supply from the Alberta oil sands, we expect Lakehead System deliveries to average approximately 1.64 million Bpd in 2007.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Canada supplied approximately 1.6 million Bpd of crude oil to the United States in 2006, making it the largest source of U.S. crude oil imports. Of the Western Canadian crude oil moving into the United States, about 70 percent is transported on the Lakehead System.
Although the petroleum delivered through the Lakehead System primarily originates in oilfields in Western Canada, about 5 percent of the system’s deliveries are from U.S. domestic sources, including production from the northern Rockies and North Dakota through a connection with our North Dakota System.
In the first quarter of 2006, Enbridge completed the reversal of its
Spearhead Pipeline, which now provides 125,000 Bpd of capacity for
transportation of crude oil from Chicago to a major U.S. pipeline hub
at Cushing, Okla. Spearhead Pipeline receives all of its volumes from
our Lakehead System.
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