The newly proposed Western Gateway Pipeline, planned to ship fuels from Midwest refineries all the way to California, is gathering growing support from federal, state, and industry circles, according to one of the project’s proponents, refining giant Phillips 66.
Phillips 66 and pipeline giant Kinder Morgan unveiled in October plans for the Western Gateway Pipeline, which could become the world’s largest pipeline for transporting refined petroleum products.
The project would combine new-build pipeline from Borger, Texas, to Phoenix, Arizona, with a reversal of Kinder Morgan’s existing Santa Fe Pacific Products (SFPP) West Line (which currently flows from Colton, California to Phoenix) to enable east-to-west flows into California.
The plans also include the Phillips 66 Gold Pipeline, which currently flows from Borger to St. Louis, to also be reversed to move gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from the Midcontinent toward Borger and into the Western Gateway system.
The binding open season for Western Gateway Pipeline ends on December 19 and has “gone quite well,” Phillips 66 chief executive Mark Lashier told Bloomberg News.
“We will be a substantial shipper on it ourselves,” the executive said.
Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan will evaluate the results of the open season to determine how big the pipeline would be, but they feel “pretty confident at this point”, including about approvals the project needs to obtain, Lashier told Bloomberg. A newly-built section of Western Gateway that would cross near Mescalero Apache land in New Mexico has received buy-in from local communities, the executive added.
The pipeline has the strong support of the Trump Administration, but also state support in the states around California.
Currently, the Western Gateway Pipeline is targeting completion by 2029. A massive pipeline similar to the Colonial pipeline that moves fuels from Gulf Coast refineries to the Eastern Seaboard would be welcome news for the western states, especially California, where gasoline prices are the highest in America and where refineries are closing due to California’s assault on the oil and gas sector in recent years.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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