US Pipeline Companies Hit by Weak Demand Offer Enticements to Keep Shippers

US Pipeline Companies Hit by Weak Demand Offer Enticements to Keep Shippers
Some of the 27 oil tankers anchored off shore during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are viewed from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter near Long Beach, Calif., on April 23, 2020. U.S. Coast Guard/Petty Officer Third Class Aidan Cooney/Handout via Reuters
|Updated:

NEW YORK—U.S. pipeline companies are sweetening terms in a competition to keep producers using their lines as the industry downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic means there is less oil to transport.

The pandemic has ended a boom in U.S. shale production which had prompted a rapid expansion in the capacity of the largest energy pipeline network in the world to carry all the oil from fields to processing centers and onto refineries and export terminals.