Enbridge Inc. won a court verdict Monday to defeat the third protest lawsuit since February that aimed to halt construction of the $2.6 billion Minnesota leg of its Line 3 oil pipe replacement project.

Enbridge Line 3

“The project is on track to be in service in the fourth quarter of 2021,” said Enbridge after a three-judge Minnesota Court of Appeals panel upheld the approval by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC).

Construction of about two-thirds of Line 3 has been completed since the appeals court and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected demands for stop-work injunctions last winter.

The decision followed a week of demonstrations by at least 1,000 pipeline foes that styled themselves as water protectors and declared they were defending against the...