Takeaway Capacity -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

This is an interesting story, about Hess and the oil-loading facility at Tioga.

Alan Fuller, operations manager of the Hess crude-by-rail facility west of Tioga, reported that construction continues and until the pipeline and the automated features are complete in December, transloading from trucks onto railway cars will be conducted.

Beginning Oct. 17, 40 to 45 trucks a day will be traveling north from US 2, up Co. Road 21 to the facility, where the oil will be loaded onto railway cars.  

It's a regional link that will break early so if you want to read it, you may want to read it sooner than later.

I would assume that most folks will simply read this as another unremarkable story, just another story in the Bakken. And maybe it is.

But, I am hearing that Enbridge (pipelines) and the crude-by-rail folks have been hit with increasing requests: it's just a rumor, mostly just an idle comment from someone standing in line for coffee, but when you hear that comment and then read this story, it really does suggest that all those stories from state officials and corporate presentations about adequate takeaway capacity suggest that production and takeaway capacity is more finely balanced that I was led to believe a few months ago.

Then add the statement by Lynn Helms a couple days ago: North Dakota produced about 400,000 bopd in August, which is already quite remarkable, close to Alaska's and California's 550,000 bopd (each state), and then Lynn Helms said this a couple days ago: North Dakota could be producing as much as 800,000 bopd by the end of the year. That's two months from now but for reporting purposes, we won't know until February, 2012.