Shell, BP Gain From U.S. Seaway Oil Pipeline Reversal, RBC Says

November 18, 2011, 10:27 AM EST

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc will benefit from a plan to reverse the direction of the Seaway pipeline in the U.S. and pump crude to the Gulf of Mexico coast, RBC Capital Markets said.

Shell and BP will each pump about 13 percent of their total oil output in North America through the pipeline, said Peter Hutton, a London-based analyst at RBC. The reversal will ease the glut of West Texas Intermediate oil at the U.S. benchmark’s delivery hub at Cushing, Oklahoma, and narrow the spread with Brent oil. That will boost adjusted earnings for Shell and BP by 3.2 percent and 3 percent respectively, Hutton said.

“Market reaction at Shell should be more positive,â€