Another Refiner Looking For Increased Access to Bakken Oil: Calumet, On Lake Superior, Wisconsin

Updates

September 23, 2013: The Bismarck Tribune reports that the proposed Calumet Lake Superior crude oil terminal has been put on hold; it may not make economical sense competing with pipeline and rail.

February 24, 2013: The Dickinson Press provides a huge amount of detail regarding this crude oil loading dock on Lake Superior.

So much oil is being pumped out of western Canada and North Dakota these days that there isn’t enough room to fit it all into pipelines.

Even with oil companies pouring the black gold into thousands of rail cars every day, and building new rail stations and laying track, rail cars can’t handle the load.

So officials at Calumet LLC, owners of the Superior oil refinery, are considering building a $25 million crude oil transfer dock in Superior, where oil would be loaded onto tankers and barges and moved across the Great Lakes to refineries in Ontario, Michigan, Ohio and even the East Coast.

Calumet will seek permits and do preliminary work this year and would conduct dredging, dock, pipeline and storage construction in 2014 and be ready to ship oil by March 2015.

It’s estimated that, because of the small size of the supply pipeline, the terminal could fill a single tanker or barge about once every three or four days.

Comment: there's a good chance activists will get this project stopped/delayed. If the Keystone XL is approved, this terminal "goes away," according to the article. Rail: $9/bbl; by boat across the Great Lakes, $3.50/bbl -- transportation costs.

Original Post

Link here to Bloomberg Business:

Petroleum refiner Calumet Specialty Products Partners is exploring whether to build a crude oil loading dock on Lake Superior, near its Superior, Wis., refinery, to ship crude oil on the Great Lakes and through connecting waterways, the company said Friday.

"Calumet is currently assessing the viability of the project and gauging interest in the marketplace," Todd Borgmann, vice president of business development at Calumet, said in a statement. "We would expect to have this project fully operational during the shipping season of 2015 and are currently in talks with potential customers and partners."

Wow, it never quits, does it?

Pipelines are the cheapest way to move petroleum products, Bellamy said, but their delivery points are fixed. Railcars, barges and ships can move to different delivery points. That allows crude to go to the highest bidder.

Indianapolis-based Calumet processes crude oil and other feedstocks into lubricating oils, solvents and waxes used in consumer, industrial and automotive products. Calumet also produces gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Calumet has 11 facilities in northwest Wisconsin, northwest Louisiana, northern Montana, western Pennsylvania, Texas and eastern Missouri.

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A Note to the Granddaughters

I continue to enjoy David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years. He has an incredible number of stories that (might) explain some of the origins of modern rituals. On page 169 when talking about slavery and death, Graeber noted:

In West Africa .... the same principles applied ... once he had been finally removed from his own milieu through capture the slave was considered as socially dead, just as if he had been vanquished and killed in combat ... among the Mande, at one time, prisoners of were brought home by the conquerors were offered [rice] and milk porridge -- because it was held that  man should not die on an empty stomach....

... and thus the origin of the last meal before execution. I suppose some might argue that the last meal is related to Jesus' last meal but the West African practice is certainly interesting.