Dakota Access pipeline decision officially delayed

A federal judge's schedule for briefings in a dispute to close Energy Transfer's 570,000 b/d Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) essentially delays a decision until the end of the year.

Judge James Boasberg approved a schedule for briefings and responses through 18 December on a motion by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other plaintiffs to halt the flow of oil on the line after the court vacated a key easement, according to a filing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

All parties in the case had proposed the schedule earlier this week.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit last month issued a split ruling in the DAPL case allowing the pipeline to keep operating during legal proceedings but also upholding a portion of the district court ruling that threw out the federal easement which allows DAPL to cross under the Missouri river. The appeals court kicked the easement issue back to the district court but is still hearing the broader case. The appeals court set oral arguments for 4 November.

Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers has started a new environmental review of the contested permit even as the legal case is pending. The Army Corps is also set to brief the district court by next month on how the pipeline can continue to operate without the easement.

The underlying lawsuit was brought by the Standing Rock Sioux and other Native American groups who contend that the Army Corps' original environmental review failed to adequately study certain issues related to potential oil spills from the pipeline, which went into service in June 2017.

A DAPL shutdown would cut off a major conduit of crude from the Bakken shale in North Dakota to the US midcontinent and the Gulf coast. DAPL moves Bakken crude to Patoka, Illinois, where it connects to another Energy Transfer pipeline to Nederland, Texas.

Industry groups and state officials have told the court that shutting DAPL would cause large production shut ins in North Dakota.

By Eunice Bridges