Pembina Pipelines to Boost Size of Expansion Program

Pembina Pipeline Corp , which operates a regional pipeline network in Western Canada, said on Wednesday it will boost the size of a planned C$2 billion ($1.83 billion) expansion, adding an additional 420,000 barrels per day of capacity to its system.

The company said strong demand for oil transportation led it to add two additional pipelines to its Phase III expansion project. One 12-inch line carrying 95,000 bpd 70 kilometers (43 miles) from Wapiti, in central Alberta, to Kakwa, near Grande Prairie, Alberta.

Another 16-inch line will be built running 270 kilometers from Fox Creek, near the burgeoning Duvernay shale-oil field in west central Alberta, to a refining and transportation hub near Edmonton, the province's capital.

The two lines are expected to be in service by mid-2017 and add C$435 million to the expansion project's original price tag.

The company said it has firm contracts for 289,000 bpd, or 69 percent of the planned lines' capacity.

Pembina's Phase III expansion was originally planned to add 540 kilometers of new pipelines in British Columbia and Alberta to add up to 500,000 bpd of new capacity to its network.

Pembina shares fell 35 Canadian cents to C$51.86 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

(1 US dollar = 1.0937 Canadian dollar)

(Reporting by Scott Haggett; Editing by Bernard Orr)