Oil Firms Reveal Plan To Move Gas Conoco, Exxon To Truck Fuel Around Indian Reservation

Oil companies facing the shutdown of a pipeline that brings much of Spokane’s gasoline will truck it across Western Montana while negotiating to reopen the pipeline.

Officials from Conoco and Exxon Oil Co. said Friday they will truck nearly a million gallons of gas a day from Missoula to Thompson Falls, Mont., where it will be poured back into the pipeline and continue to North Idaho and Spokane.

Jet and diesel fuel the pipeline carries will move by rail cars to Spokane, said John Bennitt, spokesman for Conoco.

What it means for Inland Northwest drivers is higher prices at the pump. Estimates range from 2 cents to 8 cents more a gallon.

But with higher crude oil prices and the start of the travel season that means more demand for gas, it’s impossible to predict just how much, Bennitt said.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes objected to Yellowstone Pipe Line Co.’s operation of the pipeline, which resulted in a 10,000-gallon spill in January 1993.

That accident killed traditional plants the tribes use. That incident and others prompted the tribal council to deny use of about 21 miles of the pipeline on the reservation. Calls to tribal headquarters were not returned late Friday.

To assuage the tribe’s concerns, Yellowstone Pipe Line developed an environmental impact statement exploring ways to fix the pipeline. The study, released Friday, rejected two options:

Stopping use of the pipeline completely. The cost of trucking gas from Missoula all the way to Spokane was prohibitive.

Rerouting the pipeline outside the reservation boundaries. No suitable new route was found.

Yellowstone Pipe Line, which is owned by Conoco, Exxon and Union Oil Co., settled on one solution: If the tribes agree to reopen the pipeline, the company will change the route the pipeline takes through the reservations to traverse less sensitive territory.

Within a few days after the pipeline shuts down, about 80 trucks will begin hauling the gas from Missoula to Thompson Falls along Highway 200, Bennitt said. A re-injection facility at the pipeline there is near completion, he said.

About 40 of the trucks would be Conoco’s, but Exxon officials told Bennitt that they would ship their share of the fuel the same way, doubling the number of trucks.

Meetings with local police, community leaders and highway officials along the route in recent days cleared the way for the plan, Bennitt said.

In Thompson Falls, residents seemed resigned to the plan, said Tom Eggensperger, publisher of the local paper there.

“Nobody here thinks it’s the best way to go about it,” he said, and no one there seems to know how long the trucking system will be in place. “These guys seem to be doing everything they possibly can to ensure safety.”

A Houston trucking firm called D.S.I. will provide the rigs for the job under contract to Conoco and Exxon. The company checks out as one of the safest and largest trucking firms in the country, Eggensperger said.

Conoco will train and equip local emergency response crews to handle large gas spills in the event of an accident, Bennitt said.

The trucks will be filled well under weight limits for Highway 200 so that damage to the road is minimized, he said.

The 10.75-inch steel pipeline runs 558 miles from Billings to Moses Lake. It provides about 40 percent of Spokane’s gasoline, diesel fuel and aviation fuel, including all of Fairchild Air Force Base’s jet fuel.