The Illinois Commerce Commission (United States) has delivered the final approval for increasing the capacity and optimising the 570,000 bbl/d Dakota Access crude oil pipeline, which links North Dakota's Bakken shale region to the Patoka Oil Terminal in Patoka (Illinois). The Dakota Access Optimisation project will nearly double the pipeline’s capacity to 1.1 mb/d. Commissioning is scheduled by the third quarter of 2021. The Dakota Access crude oil pipeline, which is operated by Energy Transfer, was commissioned in 2017.
In July 2020, the District Court for the District of Colombia ordered Energy Transfer to shut the Dakota Access pipeline, considering that the US Army Corps of Engineers failed to produce an adequate Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project. Consequently, the regulator contravened the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it awarded an easement to Energy Transfer to construct and operate a segment of the oil pipeline beneath Lake Oahe in South Dakota. Energy Transfer has appealed the court's decision.