Work has started on a $2.6-billion pipeline project that will carry crude oil across Missouri from Flanagan, Illinois, to Cushing, Oklahoma. Kevin O’Connor of Enbridge Energy Company says the Flanagan South pipeline is similar to the Keystone XL pipeline…in some ways. Both would carry heavy crude from the tar sands of western Canada. But Flanagan would also move some light crude from the Bakken fields in North Dakota.

O’Connor says the 36-inch pipeline will carry 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day, initially. It will stretch 600 miles across parts of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Enbridge received final permits for the project last week and immediately began moving dirt. Work should be finished and the pipeline operating by the middle of next summer.