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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Crude-By-Rail Oil Loading Sites in North Dakota



July 25, 2016: CBR -- an end of an era. The Wall Street Journal.

March 21, 2016: general update on CBR in North Dakota.

March 18, 2016: Red River Oilfield Services, a mile or so east of Williston on state highway 1804 announces completion of Unit Train Project; sand, proppant, oil, cement, gravel truck/train on-loading/off-loading terminal. 

September 21, 2015: new CBR loading facility about ready to open, Palermo, ND.

November 21, 2014: update on the PSX CBR terminal and the Sacajawea pipeline.

October 6, 2014: update on the proposed PSX CBR terminal. 

September 18, 2014: Powers Lake?

September 4, 2014: PSX to build new CBR terminal in the Bakken. To the best of my knowledge this is separate from the Plaza terminal just announced.

August 26, 2014: new CBR terminal proposed; this one would be at Plaza, ND, about 10 miles east of Parshall, ND.  At 70,000 in 14 hours, could load one unit train/day. Storage at 300,000 bbls and increasing to 600,000 bbls in Phase 2.

August 12, 2013: Calumet acquires seven CBR terminals and related facilities from Murphy Oil in the Bakken oil patch. 

June 28, 2013: Bakken crude-by-rail capacity jumps by 50% with addition of two more terminals; almost 500,000 bopd capacity; could reach 700,000 bopd by end of year. 

May 31, 2013: Kinder Morgan cancels plans for that $2-billion-pipeline to California. 

May 24, 2013: rail leaving Kinder-Morgan $2 billion pipeline to west coast in the lurch.

May 23, 2013: RBN Energy on tank cars. 

May 21, 2013: feature story on Enbridge-Canopy joint venture to Philadelphia.
The common ground that Canopy and Enbridge discovered materialized into a JV called Eddystone Rail Co., which Enbridge formally announced Nov. 26 of last year. Enbridge owns a 75-percent stake in the JV, with Canopy holding the remaining interest.
May 15, 2013: Enbridge could shut 80,000 bopd Berthold CBR terminal. 

May 13, 2013: a new CBR terminal -- Cenex, CHS transport, Boyle, Stark.

May 13, 2013: RBN update on 154 CBR terminals.

March 20, 2013: Berthold Oil Terminal -- unit train can be loaded by pipeline in less than 14 hours; 8 unit trains/week; 80,000 bbls/unit train

January 19, 2013: an article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune says there are 20 crude oil rail loading terminals in North Dakota but without supporting documentation. [Update: Looking at the map from the ND Pipeline Authority provided by RBN Energy -- nd-rail-facilities-jan-29-2013.pdf -- there are 20 crude oil rail loading terminals. March 10, 2013.]

December 6, 2012: Plains All American Pipeline to buy three oil-loading rail terminals across the US: Bakken, Eagle Ford, Niobrara.
The assets to be acquired include three crude oil rail loading terminals located in the Eagle Ford, Bakken and Niobrara producing regions with an aggregate daily loading capacity of approximately 85,000 barrels per day, a rail unloading terminal at St. James, Louisiana with capacity of approximately 140,000 barrels per day and a project to construct a crude oil unloading terminal near Bakersfield, California.
November 20, 2012: RBN Energy provides a list of all rail routes leading out of the Bakken.

November 13, 2012: BNSF presentation, a PDF file; coolest site of the week.

October 8, 2012: RBN Energy, Part II, unit tank trains.

September 18, 2012: RBN Energy, Part I, unit tank trains -- NGLs on the rail.

September 14 2012: CBR and FSBR facilities continue to come on line

August 14, 2012: Tesoro will increase CBR from 30,000 to 50,000 bopd to its west cost refinery.

August 3, 2012: Berthold Farmers Elevator, west of Minot; will double revenues for the elevator; 

June 19, 2012: very nice update; a must read.  Currently: 470,000 bopd by rail -- capacity; at the link the spokesman said there have been 17 rail/oil terminals built since 2008; my list below show 15 -- not bad for picking up information from mainstream media

May 14, 2012: compare the "readers' list" below with the RBN Energy list posted this morning. 

Tank Cars

From RBN, September 18, 2012, see link above:
As of June 2012, there were just over 1.5MM revenue generating (locomotives, maintenance equipment, end of train/cabooses not included) rail cars in North America. Tank cars make up about 300,000 of the railcar fleet - 75,000 of them high pressure tanks designed to carry hazardous gases shipped under pressure (liquefied). The latter have thicker tank walls and better valves and fittings and most have special features to improve crashworthiness.

It takes a high pressure rail car to move propane, normal butane and isobutane. These NGL products, generally referred to as LPGs (liquefied petroleum gasses) have high vapor pressures and must be transported in vessels that can withstand that pressure. Y-grade (mixed NGLs containing ethane) can be carried in high pressure cars provided that the ethane content is minimal. The ethane in the mix must be low enough not to trigger inadvertent hydrocarbon releases and/or damage the tank car). Ethane has a vapor pressure well above the threshold for even high pressure tank cars.
The DOT common specifications for high pressure tank cars mean they have a capacity range of 17,000 to 33,500 gallons (404-797 Bbl) and a weight limit of 263,000 lbs.
Original Post 
[The list may be updated.]

A reader is looking for a list of all crude-by-rail oil-loading facilities in the Bakken.

I will need help from readers telling me where the CBR oil-loading facilities are. [Later: be sure to read the comments, especially the one about following these facilities on Google satellite view (May 1, 2012); several folks have sent in some nice comments regarding these oil loading rail facilities.]

This will be linked at the sidebar at the right, under the "Top Ten" list. The list will be "crude" at first (no pun intended) and as "we" go along, the list will be cleaned up. Eventually, perhaps location, capacity, operator, comments, links.

CBR sites, the "readers list":

118-Tank Car Unit Train: A Big "Thank You" to the President for Killing the Keystone XL; Killing the XL Will Give These Unit Trains a Few Extra Years of Life
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