Biggest Story of the Day: Plains All American Pipeline --> Rail

Link to HBJ Morning Call.

The facilities and marketing giant said in a statement three of the operating terminals are located at major U.S. shale plays, the Eagle Ford, Bakken and Niobrara formations. Those terminals have an aggregate daily capacity of about 85,000 barrels of oil per day, Plains All American said.

In the deal, the partnership bought another operating, unloading terminal in St. James, La., which has a capacity to unload about 140,000 barrels per day. The unloading terminal under development will be located near Bakersfield, Calif., the partnership said.

In an earlier post, Don suggested that there were five BP refineries in the US that could see Bakken oil. I did not think California would see Bakken oil, but "anon 1" did -- and this tends to support the possibility.  Whether California sees Bakken oil is not the point.

This is the story: for those who thought rail was a temporary phenomenon for shipping oil .... hmmmm.  Producers like rail for at least three reasons. Actually I can think of four.

By the way, PAA is not the only pipeline company to add rail. Enbridge is doing the same thing. There are several posts on Enbridge and rail; that is just one of them.