(Reuters) – Dakota Access, LLC asked a federal court to stay its order to shut and empty the largest oil pipeline out of North Dakota within 30 days pending an appeal of the ruling, court records showed on Thursday.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier this week denied an emergency request to reconsider its decision, which came after the court found fault with an environmental permit for the 570,000 barrel-per-day Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL).
Dakota Access, controlled by Energy Transfer LP, asked the court in a filing late on Wednesday to decide on its request by July 14 so it could appeal to the U.S. Circuit Court for D.C. if denied. The lower court is holding a hearing on Thursday to discuss the schedule.
DAPL was ordered to shut and be emptied by Aug. 5 while an environmental review of the line was being completed. A portion of the pipeline runs under South Dakota’s Lake Oahe, a drinking water source for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which long opposed the pipeline.
Dakota Access said shutting the line would cost companies and state economies billions of dollars and result in the loss of thousands of jobs.
Energy Transfer and Dakota Access say they would lose $2.8 million to $3.5 million each day the line is idled in 2020 and as much as $1.4 billion for the whole of next year.
Purging the line, which runs 1,172 miles from the Bakken shale region in North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois, would take about three months and cost roughly $27 million, it said.
The company told Reuters on Wednesday it had not yet taken measures to empty the line.
(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Richard Chang)
