For The Archives: Bloomberg And The Bakken Boom; California Imported Eight (8) Times As Much Bakken Crude In February As It Did One Year Ago; Bakken Oil Arriving By Marine Vessel For The First Time In History

This is the headline at Bloomberg today:

Bakken Boom Cutting West Coast Imports Of Crude: Energy Markets

Note: it doesn't say the oil shale revolution or the central corridor or Texas or whatever .... the headline shouts "The Bakken."

I wonder if Snopes will ever update their page on the Bakken or whether Jane Nielsen will update her blog, the one in which she said about the Bakken: don't believe the hype. Sure, there's some oil there, but not much.

So, back to the Bloomberg article:

The West Coast is bringing in record amounts of crude from the interior of the U.S., cutting the price of foreign supplies and heralding the end of some overseas imports by next year.

California, the world’s ninth-largest economy, shipped via rail more oil than ever in February from North Dakota’s Bakken formation, while Russian imports to the region slid to 713,000 barrels from a June 2012 record of 6.53 million. The premium for Russia’s East Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil has retreated 60 percent against U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate since Feb. 20. 

The drop in foreign purchases underscores the U.S.’s shifting needs as soaring output in states such as North Dakota and Texas put the country on course for energy self-sufficiency for the first time since Harry Truman was president in 1952. The West coast, home to 17 percent of the nation’s refining capacity, may be able to dispense with overseas light, sweet oil even as output from Alaska’s North Slope and California wanes.  

The article is simply staggering with its statistics:

California, PADD 5’s largest refiner, received an unprecedented 206,172 barrels of Bakken crude by rail in February, eight times the volume from a year ago. The state took in 94,695 barrels of Bakken crude in March, up from 70,706 a year earlier, according to the latest data available from the California Energy Commission.

Last year, Bakken oil began arriving in California on marine vessels for the first time, totaling 89,462 barrels, according to the commission’s data.