TransCanada Chief Executive Officer Hal Kvisle said “Keystone will be the first pipeline to directly connect a growing and reliable supply of Canadian crude oil to the largest refining market in North America. Our shippers have committed crude oil that amounts to 75 per cent of the expansion capacity for an average term of 17 years reflecting the value the project has to the overall market.”

When completed, the expansion will increase the capacity of the Keystone Pipeline System from 590,000 bbl/d of oil to approximately 1.1 MMbbl/d. The Keystone expansion is a 36 inch diameter crude oil pipeline stretching from Hardisty, Alberta, and running southeast through Saskatchewan, Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. It will link up with a portion of the Keystone Pipeline that will be built through Kansas to Cushing, Oklahoma.

The pipeline will then continue on through Oklahoma to a delivery point near existing terminals in Nederland, Texas, to serve the Port Arthur marketplace.

Applications for United States regulatory approvals are proceeding, and decisions are anticipated during the fourth quarter of 2010.

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Construction is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2011 and deliveries of crude oil to the United States Gulf Coast are scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2013.

TransCanada continues to make progress on the initial phase of Keystone that will deliver crude oil to the United States Midwest. Line fill continues with crude oil expected to reach Patoka, Illinois, in mid-2010.