'Crude by Rail,' as Opposed to by Pipelines

choi

(1) Matthew Philips and Asjylyn Loder, All Aboard the Crude Express. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, June 17, 2013.
http://www.businessweek.com/arti ... -in-crude-transport

Quote:

"By laying a few extra miles of track and building new loading facilities, oil and gas operators are quickly connecting remote areas of oil production with the existing networks of big railroads such as Union Pacific and BNSF Railway. On the other end, they’re running tracks directly into refining complexes as far away as Philadelphia and Puget Sound. These rail projects can often be finished in a matter of months at a cost that’s usually in the millions, not billions.

"While moving crude by pipeline still costs about half to one-third what it does to move it by rail, trains don’t require long-term contracts or need to wait for pipelines to be built. And while pipes stretch only from point A to point B, refiners can access nearly any market in the US by rail.

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Railroads are outflanking pipelines in the race to service America's new boom
(b)  "Valero, the largest US refinery"
(i) Valero Energy Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation
(Headquarters        San Antonio, Texas; section 1 History)
(ii) Valero
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero
(Valero may refer to "Valero, Salamanca, municipality of Salamanca Spain")
(c) The bar chart is headlined "Export Capacity of the Williston Basin."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williston_Basin
(city of Williston, North Dakota [which in turn was named for Daniel Willis James])

choi

(2) Ben Lefebvre, Trains Leave Kinder Morgan Pipeline in Lurch; Growing Use of Railroads to Ferry Crude Leads to Cool Reception for $2 Billion Project. Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2013.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 97003961136978.html

Quote:

"That [Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP's 277,000 barrel-a-day Freedom pipeline, proposed in April 2012] would give refiners in California, which now partly complement the state's declining oil production with expensive crude imports from Alaska, Ecuador and other far-flung nations, a direct shot at the relatively cheap crude squeezed out of shale formations through hydraulic fracturing.

"Their [California's refiners'] lack of interest in the pipeline underscores how these other modes of oil transport, once seen as stopgaps until new pipelines could be built to deliver the growing amount of crude produced in Alberta, Texas and North Dakota, are becoming a permanent fixture of the North American energy landscape.

My comment: There is no need to read the rest of the report.