Plains All American L.P. will begin operations on an expanded West Texas oil pipeline on Nov. 1, helping to ease a bottleneck that has weighed on Midland crude prices for months, it said in a regulatory filing. Booming production in west Texas’ Permian Basin, the biggest U.S. oil field, has overwhelmed existing pipelines to Gulf Coast export markets, driving oil prices to as much as $18 below those at the coast this year. Production in the Permian has nearly doubled in the last three years, to 3.4 million barrels per day (bpd). The Houston-based pipeline operator this month began filling its extended Sunrise pipeline, which when completed will add 500,000 bpd from Midland to Wichita Falls, Texas, with connections to the main U.S. crude storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. By Oct. 31, the line will be full and “fully operational and capable of providing transportation services” the […]