Sep. 3--TWIN LAKES TOWNSHIP -- The largest active construction project in Minnesota is officially under way after a ceremonial groundbreaking Wednesday for the Enbridge Energy pipeline that will carry Canadian crude oil across the state to Superior.

With a landscape of neatly stacked pipes as a backdrop, Enbridge officials joined local, state and tribal political and business leaders in Carlton County on Wednesday in a gravel pit used as a giant pipe marshalling yard.

"This is a pipeliner's dream... beautiful when you can see rows and rows of pipe,'' said Al Monaco, Enbridge executive vice president of major projects.

Thousands of giant pipes have been stockpiled in recent months in anticipation of Enbridge securing federal and state permits for the massive project. The most critical of those permits came late last month when the U.S. State Department approved the project.

Crews already are digging trenches and laying pieces. The company hopes to have the job done and ready to move oil south by the end of 2010.

This is a fantastic "private-sector stimulus program,'' said U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, praising its impact on jobs, small-town businesses and the state's economy.

The project's numbers are nearly all big:

r The $1.2 billion U.S. segment of the pipeline is part of an $8 billion, 1,000-mile system expansion that will bring oil from Alberta into the U.S., across Minnesota and into Wisconsin. From Superior, the oil could either be refined at the Murphy Oil facility or piped another 450 miles to Illinois.

--More than 3,000 construction workers, many of them skilled union tradesmen, will be on the job over the next year, including welders making more than 40,000 pipe connections. Many local firms also are subcontractors on the job. The new Minnesota Twins stadium, by comparison, had about the same number of workers but is about one-third the cost of the pipeline.

--Two pipelines are being laid side-by-side, one 36 inches in diameter and another 20 inches across. Crude oil will flow south while a refined product used to dilute thick tar-sand crude will flow north.

--About 326 miles of pipe will be laid in Minnesota. Each piece is 72 feet long. That's 21,516 pipes for each of the two lines, or more than 43,000 pieces of pipe.

--More than 1,000 excavators, bulldozers and other pieces of heavy equipment will be laying the pipe.

--The pipeline will carry about 450,000 barrels of oil, or 19 million gallons, into the U.S. every day. That's in addition to the 67.2 million gallons the company already moves through existing pipelines along the same route.