Crude-By-Rail -- Idle Rambling -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

I apologize for the poor writing below; I can't articulate well what I'm trying to say; I could blame it on being exhausted from being out in the Bakken all day, putting 105 miles on the odometer on gravel roads, but I never was a good writer, so no excuses. Hopefully folks will get the gist of what I'm trying to say, below the video (the video is here to get my energy back up).

A completely random video that keeps my spirits up. The ballad is not uplifting but Roy Orbison always re-energizes me.

“Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

Walk On, Roy Orbison
 
"Anonymous" asked whether there were enough rail tankers to transport the amount of Bakken oil folks are talking about. I mentioned that I could not answer that (whether there are enough rail cars).

"Anonymous" has inadvertently raised another issue. It's been my contention that monthly production from the Bakken has been held back due to a) lack of enough takeaway capacity; and, perhaps, b) lack of demand.

With increased crude-by-rail capacity coming on-line almost daily now and increased demand, it will be interesting to see if there is a jump in Bakken production. First, with increased rail, there is increased takeaway capacity, and, second, with Enbridge decision to take the pressure off Cushing, there seems, to me, that we might see an increase in Bakken production that cannot be explained simply by continued Bakken drilling.

NDIC has a great slide presentation showing the takeaway capacity that now exists with pipeline plus rail, slides 81 and 82 of NDIC's November, 2011, presentation, linked near the top of the sidebar at the right.

Now that rail can take oil directly to the coast, there may be increased production. And, of course, infrastructure (pipelines in the oil patch) continues to improve.

I'm expecting to see a jump in Bakken production, more than what folks have been predicting based on past production.  The weather has been great; active rigs have reached new records; more infrastructure has been laid in; so we will see.