Absolutely Crazy...the Activity: Statoil (BEXP) To Lease 1,000 Train Cars to East Bottleneck; Also -- Misc Energy Links

From the print edition of the WSJ, p. B7.

"Statoil Using Rails to Ease Bottleneck"

Again, a fairly long article, about a sixth of the page devoted to a North Dakota Bakken story.

Regular readers know the story: not enough pipeline takeaway capacity. Statoil (bought BEXP) will lease more than 1,000 railroad cars to "overcome pipeline bottlenecks that plague the booming oil-producing region."

The writer is a bit behind the times, though, talking about the Bakken -- still talking about 639,000 bopd in May, when the most recent figures are 660,000 bopd reported in June.

Data points:

• starting in September: Statoil will have long-term rail leases to ship 45,000 bopd
• more than enough to handle ALL of BEXP's production coming out of North Dakota
• no price disclosed; carrier not disclosed
• 14 to 15 days for a round trip from the Bakken to the terminal
• discounts, due to bottlenecks, range from $5 to $20/barrel

Other data points

• Phillips 66 recently bought 2,000 rail cars for same purpose
• Tesoro will ship Bakken oil to its Anacortes, WA, refinery by train starting in September
• Marathon ships about 14% of its Bakken oil by rail

Last data point

• Statoil produced about 100,000 boepd in 2011; plans to move that to 500,000 by 2020 (North American production which includes Bakken, Eagle Ford, Marcellus

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RBN Energy: more on NGL distribution