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Rail Infrastructure Rapidly Developed to Serve Bakken Oil Fields
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- Created on Wednesday, 04 January 2012 09:43
Other than pipelines, another way of getting crude oil to market is by rail, and the infrastructure for that means of transportation is rapidly being built.
As more crude oil loading terminals move into various stages of completion in North Dakota, the expansion of one of the two destination terminals at St. James LA is coming on line this month, according to "Oil Patch Hotline."
St. James has quickly become the destination of choice for Williston Basin producers because of the attractive premiums for Bakken crude oil. The premium now ranges between $12 to $15 per barrel.
US Development Group said the increased size of its current facility will allow it to unload two 104-car unit trains a day. That means that the terminal can off load 130,000 barrels a day, compared to 65,000 barrels.
"We expect a full unit train can be off loaded in eight to ten hours," said Bill Swan, director of business development for USDG, which is building new terminals in Bakersfield, CA and on the east coast. "That means we have doubled the size of our track area that allows us to unload 52 cars at a time."
Construction is at the halfway mark for EOG Resources and NuStar Logistics, on a new 70,000-barrel-per-day unit train off loading facility at St. James for crude oil deliveries from North Dakota and Texas.
Savage Companies, which is building a new loading terminal at Trenton, ND, expects to complete a new offloading terminal at Port Arthur, TX by early to mid-2012. It is part of a joint project with Kansas City Southern, designed to bring in unit trains from North Dakota, Canada and other oil producing areas.
Tesoro Corp. announced it will build a new $60 million unloading facility, capable of receiving 30,000 barrels of oil per day from unit trains.
Tesoro has completed a long-term agreement with Rangeland Energy to use its crude oil loading terminal at Epping, ND, which is connected to Tesoro's High Plains Pipeline system. Unit train delivers to Anacortes are scheduled to start late new year.
Rangeland said it has also signed a new deal with crude oil marketer Flint Hills Resources to sell crude oil from its COLT terminal, when it comes on line early next year.
Rangeland will be able to load unit trains carrying 80,000 barrels on a daily basis at its North Dakota facility, where it also has five 120,000-barrel storage tanks as well as a new crude oil feeder line.
