REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsHOUSTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - A draft environmental impact statement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline is now expected to be released in fall, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Thursday. The review was initially expected to be completed last year and earlier was pushed back to spring of this year. A U.S. court last year ordered the federal government to undertake a more intensive environmental study of the pipeline's route under a lake that straddles the border of North Dakota and South Dakota. It is the biggest oil pipeline from the Bakken shale oil basin and can transport up to 750,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota to Illinois. "It's a real threat that DAPL could be shut down or shut down to temporarily move it," Lynn Helms, director at North Dakota regulator, Department of Mineral Resources, said last week.

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Persons: Edwin Drake's, Brendan McDermid, Lynn Helms, Arathy Somasekhar, Gary McWilliams Organizations: Drake, Titusville , Pennsylvania U.S, REUTERS, Rights, Dakota, U.S . Army Corps of Engineers, South Dakota . Pipeline, Energy, North, of Mineral Resources, Thomson Locations: Titusville , Pennsylvania, U.S, North Dakota, South Dakota, Illinois, Dallas, Missouri, Houston