IPAA assessment declares Straits Pipeline in Michigan in excellent condition

Hitting back at critics of Enbridge’s Line 5 Pipelines earlier this month, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) addressed an analysis from Dynamic Risk Assessment Systems which declared the Straits Pipeline in Michigan in prime shape.

IPAA was supporting other comments by the Michigan Oil & Gas Association (MOGA). To that end, IPAA pointed to the cost of other scenarios considered in the analysis that had a Michigan without the Enbridge Line, as well as market distortions they might cause, as reason for the pipeline’s continuation. Further, IPAA said that alternatives to pipeline transport would close markets for producers in the state and were largely unfeasible.

“Lower Peninsula producers would face an additional cost of $2.40/barrel to get their oil to market,” the DRAS analysis had found.

Those costs would be passed onto the consumers, through several cent rises in gasoline prices. IPAA said such increases would also come without any guaranteed improvement to crude oil transportation, either. While the IPAA and MOGA both said the analysis’ worst-case scenario was likely overstated due to unrealistically lengthy delays in corrective action, they both called on the state to listen to its research as a way of offsetting emotional arguments among their opponents.

“IPAA strongly encourages Michigan to weight the facts of the analysis, rather than the emotion of those who would use constraints on pipeline infrastructure to inhibit development of America’s oil and natural gas resources,” Susan Ginsberg, vice president of crude oil and natural gas regulatory affairs at IPAA, wrote in an Aug. 4 letter to the Michigan Pipeline Safety Advisory Board.