Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP) announced that its 50:50 joint venture with Imperial Oil Ltd. entered additional firm take-or-pay agreements sufficient to allow a planned expansion project to proceed. The expansion will add incremental capacity of 110,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) of oil at the Edmonton Rail Terminal, which is almost a year into construction. The terminal will increase its capacity at startup in first-quarter 2015 to more than 210,000 bbl/d and possibly up to 250,000 bbl/d.

The terminal will connect via pipeline to Kinder Morgan’s adjacent Edmonton storage terminal and will be able to source all crude streams handled by Kinder Morgan for rail delivery to North American markets and refineries. Kinder Morgan is constructing and will operate the terminal, which will connect to Canadian National and Canadian Pacific mainlines.

With the addition of the capacity expansion, KMP’s investment in the project is about $232 million.