Rail Trumps Pipelines For Bakken Oil

Link to The Bismarck Tribune.

Oneok’s official statement said, “We did not receive sufficient long-term commitments under the terms we needed to construct the Bakken Crude Express Pipeline.”

Just days before, a 103-car train carrying Bakken crude arrived in Tacoma, Wash.
The postponement of the pipeline and the North Dakota-Tacoma oil-by-rail connection are directly related. They open another chapter in the state’s relationship with the railroad and oil development.

Much of the focus had been on moving North Dakota crude to refineries in Tulsa. But the big increases in domestic oil production have created an over supply in the Tulsa area. That’s where the Bakken Express was headed, and that’s where Keystone XL intends to connect before heading to the Gulf.

Not only that, oil companies in North Dakota are pumping crude and need to move it now. Those pipelines are years from reality.

The stars aligned for BNSF Railway.