- The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) or Bakken pipeline is a 1,172-mile-long (1,886 km) underground pipeline in the United States that has the ability to transport up to 750,000 barrels of light sweet crude oil per day. It begins in the shale oil fields of the Bakken Formation in northwest North Dakota and continues through South Dakota and Iowa to an oil terminal near Patoka, Illinois. Together with the Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline from Patoka to Nederland, Texas, it forms the Bakken system. The pipeline transports 40 percent of the oil produced in the Bakken region.
