Crude-By-Water; Colorado Sets Crude Oil Production Record

Regular readers, through RBN Energy links, already know the back story. A reader sent me this link about increased crude-by-water investment. HoustonBiz is reporting:

For Kirby Corp., a Houston-based tank barge operator, business is booming, thanks to shale oil and gas.

Looking to the future, Kirby is anticipating continued business success once petrochemical and refining expansions in the Gulf Coast come to fruition.

In preparation for these downstream expansions, the company is investing $81 million to construct 29 inland tank barges with a total capacity of 830,000 barrels of product. This is in addition to other barge investments Kirby announced earlier this year. These investments include 37 smaller inland tank barges, which cost a total of about $45 million, and one 185,000-barrel coastal articulated tank barge and tugboat unit that will cost the company between $75 and $80 million.

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HoustonBiz is also reporting:

Colorado’s booming energy industry produced nearly 63.2 million barrels of crude oil in 2013, a new state record for annual oil production, according to a Denver Business Journal review of records from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), which oversees the multi-billion dollar industry.

That’s a 28 percent jump from 2012, when the state’s oil and gas wells produced nearly 49.3 million barrels of oil, according to COGCC records.

At a rate of 900,000 bopd, North Dakota is producing about 330 million bbls of crude oil per year.