"has over thirty (30) loading facilities, plus another eighteen (18) in the works, to handle nine unit crude oil trains that move about 137,000 barrels...goal is to reach...730,000 barrels on 118-car unit trains."That's what the article says: 730,000 barrels. It did not state how often the trains would run, or what the daily takeaway capacity was. If it did I missed it; perhaps the information is obvious from that provided by I was not able to sort it out. The article's headline references "North Dakota" so I assume these numbers refer to loading facilities in North Dakota.
The article goes on to say that Canadian Pacific is also working to expand three loading facilities now in place at Stampede, Donnybrook, and New Town." CP is said to be increasing its investment in oil loading capacity.
For more background on railroad oil loading, go to the bottom of the sidebar at the right, to the "Labels" section, and click on "Rail." Also check out "FAQ" tab at top of page.
Historical trivia: back in 2007, before Mr Buffett bought Burlington Northern Santa Fe railraod, he was accumulating shares of it. At that time, the potential for moving crude oil was mentioned in passing.
The first rail oil loading facility in North Dakota was at Stampede, built in 2008.
Believed to be the first rail-loading facility in North Dakota is one now in operation at Stampede, a town near Columbus, built by Pioneer Oil. The Stampede facility has been operating for about a month, loading North Dakota crude.
Kurt Koppelsloen, Columbus, who manages the facility, said they've been increasing capacity.
"We did 2,000 barrels a day in July [2008], we'll try to do 4,000 now," he said Wednesday.No one lives at Stampede, located 2 miles east of Columbus, ND. At that time, the tank cars held 660 barrels; newer tank cars hold nearly 1200 barrels, or about 50,000 gallons.
Establishing a rail-loading facility at Stampede was a plan made by Pioneer Oil and Dakota, Missouri Valley & Western Railroad.
Something is impacting supply/demand for transportation of ND crude to the Gulf. My Illinois contacts tell me that rail-to-barge crude oil loadings on the Illinois River have spiked from next to nothing to up to 180K bbl in a very recent week (2 weeks ago). At least a portion of this was ND crude, with the balance Canadian sand crude (I am told).
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. I will add that as a random note / stand-alone post so the comment is not lost among those who don't read comments.
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