The Minnesota Pipe Line (or MPL) is a

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...

pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

that runs from

Clearbrook, Minnesota Clearbrook is a city in Clearwater County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 464 at the 2020 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land. Main routes include Minnesota St ...

southward to the

Twin Cities Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in statu ...

. Construction began in 2007 after the State of Minnesota approved the building permit, and ended in 2008; it is owned by Minnesota Pipe Line Company, LLC (MPL) and is operated by Koch Pipeline Company, a wholly owned, indirect subsidiary of Koch Industries. The original proposed route ran through an organic farm; the owners of the farm negotiated with MPL, as a result of which MPL agreed to route the pipeline around the farm and more generally "to implement what they believe was the first organic agriculture mitigation plan in the country applicable to pipeline infrastructure. This agreement was made part of the record of the MinnCan pipeline routing proceeding."Macabee, Paula Goodman
Appendix to Agricultural Impact Mitigation Plan For Organic Agricultural Land.” Pipelines, Power Lines, and Organic Farms
Drake Journal of Agricultural Law 14: 19-42. 2009. The pipeline is largely fed by the

Enbridge Pipeline System The Enbridge Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system which transports crude oil and dilbit from Canada to the United States. The system exceeds in length including multiple paths. More than of the system is in the United States while the re ...

that carries crude from

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. It splits into two parts at a junction in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. One branch serves the Pine Bend Refinery owned by

Flint Hills Resources Koch Industries, Inc. ( ) is an American privately held multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita, Kansas and is the second-largest privately held company in the United States, after Cargill. Its subsidiaries are involved in the ...

(another Koch subsidiary) in Rosemount. The other portion of the line runs to Northern Tier Energy's St. Paul Park Refinery in

St. Paul Park, Minnesota St. Paul Park is a city in Washington County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 5,279 at the 2010 census. It is on the east bank of the Mississippi River, five miles (8 km) downstream from St. Paul. Geography According to the U ...

. There is a connection at the Pine Bend Refinery to the Wood River Pipeline, which currently carries crude oil from the

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

area to Minnesota. In 2008 Minnesota Pipe Line completed a parallel line to expand the pipeline capacity from Clearbrook to the Twin Cities by with ultimate potential expansion to .

Minnesota Pipe Line system

References

{{Coord missing, Minnesota Transportation in Minnesota Energy infrastructure in Minnesota Crude oil pipelines in the United States Koch Industries Oil pipelines in Minnesota