TORRINGTON – A project to build a second pipeline through Goshen County and the rest of eastern Wyoming is moving forward, according to a report to county commissioners Tuesday by a company representative.

Danetta Welsh, government relations manager for pipeline company ONEOK headquartered in Tulsa, Okla., told Goshen County Commissioners about progress on the Elk Creek Pipeline project. The pipeline, when constructed, will parallel portions of the company’s current Bakken Pipeline which transports a product known as natural gas liquids to processing facilities near Hutchison, Kans.

“We’re still in the early stages, really, of planning,” Welsh said. “Right now, we’re beginning survey work for the route itself. We’re going out and looking at the ground, the geology, making sure the ground is okay to put it next to the Bakken Pipeline.”

The company is also in contact with local landowners to secure easements for the project, she said. Part of that step of the process will include cultural and environmental surveys, to ensure the pipeline doesn’t damage or otherwise cause any negative impacts to historic relics or the flora and fauna of the region.

“There were some areas, avoidance areas, identified on the original (Bakken) line,” Welsh said. “We’ll go back through and redo the cultural affect areas, cultural sites. The same is true of the environmental impacts.

“We take those very seriously,” she said. “We don’t want to have any more negative impacts than we have to.”

When completed, Elk Creek will be a 900-mile pipeline, which starts in southern Richland County near Sidney, Mont. It will traverse eastern Wyoming, collecting NGLs from the Williston Basin to the north as well as from processing facilities in the Dakotas and between Douglas and Casper, to northern Colorado. From there, it will turn to the southeast into Kansas.

Natural gas liquids are hydrocarbon molecules left over after natural gas is separated from the chemical soup that emerges from the ground along with crude oil from wells throughout the Williston Basin and elsewhere. NGLs include methane and propane, which are further separated in processing and sold for a variety of applications.

The Elk Creek Pipeline is projected to cost about $1.3 billion. When completed, it will be company’s longest pipeline project to date, Welsh said. The company hopes to begin some of the construction this year, with the pipeline going in to service by the end of 2019, she said. Most of the pre-construction paperwork – permits, easements, etc. – is already in place in Kansas, so work will probably begin there.

The existing Bakken Pipeline was completed in 2012. Bakken is a 12-inch diameter pipe, where the Elk Creek Pipeline will be 20-inches in diameter. Bakken is near its maximum transport capacity, necessitating the construction of the Elk Creek Project.

Initial projections for natural gas reserves in the Williston Basin were 2.5 billion cubic feet per day, Welch said, which has already been reached. New projections are almost double, about 4 billing CF/D, which means additional transport capacity is needed.

The Elk Creek Pipeline will also provide redundancy for the Bakken, Welsh said. Should the Bakken need maintenance or repair, for example, the NGLs there could be transferred to the Elk Creek line, supplemented with rail tank cars, for the duration of the work.

The actual pipe used in building the line will be arriving in Goshen County via rail to the Wyoming Connect Railroad yard near Yoder. Ashley Harpstreith, executive director of the Goshen County Economic Development Corporation, asked what the county and her agency could do to assist in the process, specifically enquiring about possible construction jobs.

Welsh replied the actual construction phase of the project will be in the hands of an independent contractor, who will be selected by a competitive bidding process. 

“They’ll manage their workforce,” she said. “I imagine they’ll already have the majority of their workforce, but there always could be opportunities for local jobs.

“Along the entire route, there could be upwards of 3,000 people working on the project,” Welsh said. “That’s a lot of people, but they’ll be spread along 900 miles.”