State and federal officials are seeking public comment on the proposed Bridger Pipeline Expansion project to carry Canadian crude from the border in Phillips County, Montana, to a terminal near Guernsey.
The massive 36-inch-diameter pipeline would span 647 miles and move about 550,000 barrels of crude oil daily. The proposed route includes about 210 miles across Crook, Weston, Niobrara, Goshen and Platte counties in eastern Wyoming, according to developer Bridger Pipeline Expansion. The company is a subsidiary of Casper-based Bridger Pipeline LLC, which owns a network of oil pipelines, including the Belle Fourche and Butte pipelines that connect North Dakota, Montana and eastern Wyoming oilfields to the Guernsey storage and interconnect hub.
Bridger Pipeline is owned by True Cos., which has had several significant pipeline spills, including a in 2022 and an incident that spewed more than in Montana in 2015.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is the lead federal regulatory authority 鈥渢o review potential impacts of the entire project to ensure environmental, cultural and community considerations are fully evaluated,鈥� according to a BLM press release. The company has also applied to the for a 鈥渃ertificate of compliance鈥� required under the state鈥檚 Major Facility Siting Act, which triggers a parallel environmental review under Montana鈥檚 Environmental Policy Act.
The 30-day public scoping and comment period initiated this week will help both federal and Montana officials identify potential impacts and alternatives. The agencies will co-host one virtual and three in-person public meetings, to be announced at a later date ( ), they said.
The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality 鈥渨ill serve as a participating agency鈥� in the BLM鈥檚 review, according to the department.
You can learn more about the , and choose the 鈥減articipate now鈥� tab to submit a comment.
Keystone Light?
Some locals in eastern Wyoming refer to the project as 鈥淜eystone Light,鈥� a Niobrara County rancher told WyoFile. The name, borrowed from a beer, is a nod to the notion that the Bridger Pipeline Expansion would help fill the industry鈥檚 aspiration for the Keystone XL oil pipeline project abandoned in 2021.
Amid , President Joe Biden 鈥� on his first day in office 鈥� cited his plans to address climate change by , which was required for the border crossing. The Bridger Pipeline Expansion will also require a presidential permit for the international border crossing, according to the BLM.
Similar to the Bridger Pipeline Expansion, Keystone XL would have transported Canadian oil-sands crude, but was larger 鈥� designed for up to 830,000 barrels per day. Its proposed route also differed, crossing in Montana and spanning portions of South Dakota and Nebraska.
One major advantage of the Bridger project, , is that the Canada-Montana-Wyoming route follows many existing rights-of-way. About half of the route in Montana is parallel to existing pipelines, and a little more than half of the 210-mile route in Wyoming follows existing pipeline corridors, according to a provided by the BLM.
Additionally, the developer owns much of that existing infrastructure: 鈥淭he Project would parallel Bridger鈥恛wned infrastructure for roughly 138 miles in Montana and 100 miles in Wyoming.鈥�
The route includes about 6 miles of BLM-managed lands in northeast Wyoming, as well as about 5 miles of Thunder Basin National Grassland, managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The federal review includes the Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Construction could begin by July 2027 and would employ about 400 workers for each of four stages of development, according to a BLM planning document.
Health and environmental concerns
In 2023, Bridger Pipeline and its subsidiary Belle Fourche Pipeline Company to resolve penalties related to a series of pipeline spills and alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and federal pipeline safety laws.
The company鈥檚 track record, combined with allegedly lax oversight by state regulators, is cause for concern, said Jill Morrison, who serves on the board of the Sheridan-based landowner advocacy group Powder River Basin Resource Council.
鈥淭hey鈥檝e had a lot of spills and breaks,鈥� Morrison told WyoFile. 鈥淎re they going to up their game to be more on top of ensuring we don鈥檛 have spills and breaks like other pipelines?鈥�
For its part, Bridger Pipeline says it has launched an artificial leak detection company, FlowState, that monitors its pipeline systems. FlowState was awarded a in 2024.
Parent company True Cos. created FlowState because it couldn鈥檛 find a leak-detection system on the market that satisfied its needs, 鈥渟o we built one,鈥� Bridger Pipeline spokesman Bill Salvin told WyoFile.
鈥淲e have had some instances where our pipelines have leaked 鈥� that鈥檚 simply a fact,鈥� Salvin said, adding that some of the company鈥檚 leaks were related to outdated practices that have since been improved industrywide. 鈥淓very one of those incidents is terribly unfortunate. That鈥檚 how we view it: We don鈥檛 want any (spill) incidents.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 most important to us,鈥� Salvin continued, 鈥渋s when those incidents happen, that we respond very quickly and with everything we have, and that we learn from them so they don鈥檛 happen again. And that鈥檚 why we鈥檝e got FlowState today.鈥�
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