A lawsuit filed by Energy Transfer Partners LP against Enterprise Products Partners LP and Enbridge Inc. over an abandoned proposal to construct an oil pipeline from Cushing, OK, to Houston “is about a company…trying to get in the courthouse what it could not achieve in the marketplace,” Enterprise said in a motion for summary judgment.

In August Enterprise said it was dropping plans for a 584-mile crude oil pipeline from Cushing it had proposed to develop with Energy Transfer, citing insufficient commercial interest to support the project (see Shale Daily, Aug. 23). Energy Transfer claims that Enterprise broke the terms of a joint venture agreement and sent out a news release announcing the dropping of the project without its consent (see Shale Daily, Oct. 4). Enterprise and Enbridge have partnered to pursue a similar project (see Shale Daily, Sept. 30).

It its motion Enterprise asserts that the partnership with Energy Transfer was never a done deal and that no agreement to undertake a project had been made.

“The parties [Enterprise and Energy Transfer] made crystal clear in that letter agreement that they had not yet agreed to undertake the proposed joint venture — the ‘transaction’ — and that ‘no binding or enforceable obligations shall exist between the parties with respect to the transaction unless and until the parties have received their respective board approvals and definitive agreements,” according to the motion.