Enbridge eyes quick restart after pipe blast

By Jeffrey Jones and Scott Haggett

CALGARY (Reuters) - Enbridge Inc on Thursday said it expects to quickly restart its huge pipeline system, the day after a deadly blast in Minnesota killed two workers and briefly choked off 10 percent of oil imports to the world's top consumer.

Flow rates through pipeline system, which runs from Alberta, Canada, to the central United States, reached 80 percent of capacity Thursday, the company said.

The Department of Transportation said it was unlikely to force Enbridge to reduce throughput at the 1.5 million-barrel-per-day (bpd) system -- the biggest U.S. import pipeline -- as it investigates the cause of the blast.

"At this time, we wouldn't expect a restriction on this incident based on what we know so far," said Brian Pierzina, senior engineer and inspector for the Minnesota Office of Pipeline Safety.

The incident occurred after four other accidents on the Enbridge system this year, but the company said it occured during routine repairs and was not the result of weakened or corroded steel.

Workers were wrapping up repair work on a section of pipe on the system's Line 3 near Clearbrook, Minnesota, when the oil spilled and ignited, Enbridge vice-president Leon Zupan told reporters during a conference call.

"It was at the tail end of this repair and replacement process when we restarted Line 3 and we ended up with the release from the line through one of these fittings," he said.

U.S. oil surged more than $4 a barrel early Thursday before easing back later as Midwest refiners scrambled to find alternate supplies on concerns about a prolonged crimp in Canadian crude flows.