This is a very brief diary to notify the DK community of the proposal by Energy Transfer Partners, LLC [the firm that bought Sunoco] to end-run the Keystone XL Pipeline through Michigan and Illinois and onto the Gulf.
The Keystone XL Pipeline would bring synthetic crude oil from the tar sands area of Alberta and cross through the western plains of the United States to Oklahoma with a second southern segment from Oklahoma to the gulf area refineries and potential ocean trans-shipment.
Instead of waiting for the Keystone XL pipeline to be completed, Energy Transfer Partners, LLC would take an existing natural gas pipeline serving Michigan and Illinois and convert it to synthetic crude service and reverse the transit direction. This would allow tar sands crude already reaching Michigan via pipeline to be trans-shipped to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Republican Governor Rick Snyder is opposing the conversion of the gas pipeline.
Michigan has been the site of a large syncrude oil spill near Marshall, MI from the Endbridge pipeline in that location.
Here are links for a couple articles addressing the ETP syncrude pipeline matter:
http://www.petroleumnews.com/...
http://in.reuters.com/...
ETP and Sunoco:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/...
3:17 PM PT: I've finally mastered the document server at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and found the FERC matter on this....The docket # is CP12-491, filed by Trunkline Pipeline & Energy Transfer Partners on July 26, 2012. Apparently, the company never announced the plan publicly except for their filings at FERC.