There is a proposed new pipe line to be built from Canada to Texas to ship crude oil through from tar sands up there. A lot of people are against it on environmental grounds. Could this oil be shipped by unit train instead?
George
Maybe it could, but not anywhere near as efficiently as a pipeline. First, there’s no direct rail route from source to destination so a train would have to take a long way around, and then return empty to be refilled.
Right now the pipeline goes about 2/3 of the way and terminates near the Mississippi, where I imagine it is transferred to a barge for the rest of the trip to the refinery. They are trying to increase the flow rate to the refinery more that get the oil there. I suspect the pipeline is less dependent on the weather and vagarities of shipping traffic than barges. I also suspect the current method is cheaper than any part by rail, and would be cheaper still if they did not have to transfer at all.
I would be curious to see how much of the opposition is funded by barge companies. Lately here in DC we have been getting a lot more barge traffic commercials (similar to the railroad commercials regarding efficiencies of the movement and fuel economy) which I would suspect are backing the barge company lobbies in getting the message to Congress about this pipeline.
We get the pipeline commercials here too. It is interesting to listen to talk radio and the different commercials you get depending on what is being discussed in the various committees on the Hill.
Bakken formation crude oil, you mean ?
Yes, the oil could be shipped by train - and many tank cars are on order all of a sudden to do just that ! However, why none are of GATX’ sTankTrain arrangement, I don’t know ?
A rail move might not be quite as efficient as a pipeline in terms of the specific energy needed to move 1 ton for 1 mile, etc. Although, it would be interesting to compare the friction of the oil against the pipeline walls - esp. for heavy, thick, viscous crude oil that needs to be heated to flow and kept warm - and overcoming humps in the line, as compared to the rolling resistance of a steel-wheel-on-steel-rail tank car, and being kept warm enough to pur in and out of the tank car.
Properly structured and managed, a rail move can be more economical than a pipeline. Mainly, that’s because the rail R-O-W is already bought and paid for, and the overhead costs can be shared with other traffic - whereas, the pipeline has to be built new with today’s dollars, and has to bear all of those capital costs itself. As John Kneiling once wrote of his integral train system, it can carry the oil at “rates that will stop pipeline expansion cold”. I’ve looked at such proposals a couple of times, and the invincibility/ superiority of the pipeline is often a myth, esp. for distances of over 100 miles where there’s already a decent rail route for most of the way, the railroad managements are not too avaricious, and are willing to run a tight ship with regard to getting over the road and prompt interchange and turn-around times, etc.
Finally, with some pre-planning, marketing, and infrastructure in place, a train can be diverted to many different rail-served destinations on short notice, to take advantage of market opportunities/ minimize disruptions, depending on the circumstances - a pipeline can’t be that agile or flexible.
- Paul North.
While I don’t doubt that rail has much more destination flexibility than a pipe line…without being in the pipe line business I have no idea of the pipe line networks that currently exist and their ability to route product to selected destinations as well as their ability (if any) to interchange product between various pipe line carriers.
My father-in-law worked at pipe line destination terminal for Sun Oil. I do know that the shipments his terminal received were scheduled and that there were different products that were delivered. The common misconception of a pipe line is that they are all used for a continuous flow of a single product … that is not always the case.
I would defer to those who have far more expertise on this subject than I. But over the last 6 months or so, about 6 to 8 miles due east of there there was constructed a portion of a 36 inch pipeline. On as North-South axis roughly paralleling USHwy 77 but to its West .
We saw large stockpiles of pipe at several locations from which it was transported to the trenching operations. I have no idea how far north it has gone, but it will extend from the area of Cushing, Okla to a location near the Athabasca Tar Sands area in Canada.
I think this line is called the Keystone XL and is an adjunct to the currently operating Keystone Pipline, which carries petroleum to a Terminus North of St. Louis, Mo ( I think to the Wood River,Il Area) This is the line (Stillgrande) mentioned.
The Keystone XL line has become a national politically charged football for the environmentalists and the subject of News stories por and mostly con in the local media (Central Kansas). There was a big kerfuffle when hearing were held recently in Topeka, and the Enviro groups were stated to be going to protest at hearings in Washington. Also somehow the US State Department was involved in holding it up due to the fact it was to issue some normally routienpermit requests, but it was suposed to be held for that process to go forward. Here is a Wiki link that seems to be pretty informative and accurate (?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline
and this link as well : http://www.transcanada.com/keystone.html
That pipeline laying process went through this area, in a couple of weeks. They were cleaned up, and gone. Once completed to Cushing, Ok. from Canada, the next extention was to go to the Gulf Coast Refinery areas of Louisiana
The simple answer to the question is “yes”. However, equipment needed…what kind and how mcuh, track space, routings, available terminals, track quality, time in transit, politics, marketing, price asked, price offered, ability of both sides to negotiate an acceptable deal, astrology, and somebody’s wife’s disposition on any given morning all would have an impact of firming up the “yes”…
samfp1943’s post above has more detail regarding the sources of the oil, and hence is more accurate - it is indeed the Athabasca Tar Sands in Canada that are the destination of the Keystone XL pipeline, and that is likely the one that the Original Poster meant when referring to it being delayed by environmental concerns (both here and in Canada).
Setting aside that dispute for the moment, I’m not surprised that a pipeline has been built to/ from Cushing, OK, or that it might eventually be a part of the Keystone XL pipeline. However, that does not mean that the XL has been approved.
The reason is that Cushing has been subject to and the source of a market disruption/ anomaly for about the past year. As I understand it, there’s a glut of incoming oil there - mainly from the North Dakota Bakken fields, more than the pipelines out can handle. That’s significant because Cushing is a ‘basing point’ for world crude oil price benchmarks . Thus, the price for crude oil at Cushing has been as much as $17 per barrel below the usual differential for comparable Brent Crude prices for North Sea oil - there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about that a few months ago (March ?). So, a new or expanded pipeline out of Cushing would be useful and worthwhile even if the Keystone XL line is never built.
- Paul North.
Here are links to some articles I found yesterday about moving either North Dakota Bakken crude oil or Athabasca Tar Sands oil by rail:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/04/enbridge-bakken-idUSN1E79317C20111004
http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=5028&mn=17766&pt=msg&mid=10080015
http://wasatchecon.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/oil-from-bakken-contributes-to-rail-traffic-increase/
- Paul North.
Link to a somewhat biased - but still with representation from both sides - and pretty informative report on this line, from the “Living on Earth” radio program - “Keystone Pipeline Oil for Export”:
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=11-P13-00040&segmentID=1
- Paul North.
The topic of Politics was briefly touched upon in earlier Threads on this topic; But I found the snippet from the link by Paul North to be an interesting journey into the machinations of how one of these major projects can rise or fall on the politics and interests of those governmental types:
(From the Link): [snip:] GELLERMAN: “…Now because this pipeline would cross the US/Canadian border, the State Department has to sign off on it. And they’ve said that it will have no significant environmental impact. And the EPA actually has chimed in, while it has no authority in this regard, it has actually gone head-to-head with the State Department and it’s not usual, typical, that that happens - where two governmental agencies are at odds with each other…”
KRETZMANN: “Yeah, well, unfortunately there seems to be something a little fishy going on at the State Department. It seems that one of Hillary Clinton’s top campaign aids has been hired by TransCanada - the pipeline firm - and has been, sort of, directly working behind the scenes with State Department staff using his connections to actually try to grease the way forward for the Keystone XL pipeline.”
GELLERMAN: “President Obama has the final say on this, though, right?”
KRETZMANN: “Sure. But I think all of us feel like this thing is really a key litmus test of the President’s commitment to the environmental community and environmental issues in general. And, if he wants environmentalists to step up during his reelection campaign, this is a minimum bar that he has to clear in terms of rejecting this pipeline…”
We had previously mentioned some of the problems and issues being raised and examined in the various Governmental Hearings being held referencing the opposition of the KeystoneXL Pipeline Construction Project.
[ I would note that while this pipeline is aimed at the movement of Canadian, Ath
Don’t forget the “oil can” trains - GATX TankTrain cars and others - on the former SP in the Bakersfield, Calif. area. Apparently they’re still running - see this 1:34 min. video from 4/3/2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIpDfdWSvfw
And this thread on them: http://www.socalrailfan.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5017
See also: http://www.donsdarkroom.com/sp_oil_cans.htm
Also, there’s a similar operation in Canada - see the bottom of this webpage: http://www.alaskarails.org/fp/TankTrain.html
Also, the “Gas Local” on the Montana Rail Link, which has been written up in Trains once or twice - it’s used to bridge between two sections of a pipeline, which was severed as a result of a dispute with a local Indian/ Native American nation as I recall. See:
“Haulin’ Gas: On a railroad that prides itself on serving its customers, Montana Rail Link’s Gas Local is the crown jewel of its operation”
by Tom Danneman, from Trains, November 2007, p. 44,
(gas MRL prototype railroad )
And a photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdanneman/5790440162/
- Paul North.
Hmm…
As I understand it, the Keystone pipeline is about halfway through South Dakota from North Dakota towards Nebraska. There is an environmental group trying to get Nebraska to not permit the pipeline to cross the state. This leads me to believe a few things. 1) The pipeline may already be accross N.D. and perhaps part of Canada(?). 2) The pipeline backers must be confident that they’ll be able to go accross Nebraska, or they wouldn’t have gone this far.
Why doesn’t it make economic sense to build a refinery in Canada, near the source of the oil? It seems like then, you’d be shipping lesser volumes, and it would all be finished product.
We’re lead to believe that there was a near dire shortage of refining capacity in North America. So much so, that a few years ago, the mere mention of a tropical storm coming anywhere near Texas refineries would cause predictions of armegeddon, and cause the price of gas to head up. You don’t suppose someone was lying-do you? [:-,]
From the map it looks like the pipeline just misses the SW corner of North Dakota.
The companies producing the oil do not own refineries, and do not want to own them. Also the crude produced in the Tar Sands is heavy crude. Heavy crude has a lot of bottom which can be hard to sell as you can only make Asphalt or Pet Coke from it. The former Marathon refinery at St. Paul, MN processes this heavy crude now, but is having a hard time selling the Asphalt at a price that makes them a profit, which means that they either charge more for their lighter products like gasoline and diesel, or they lose money (that’s why its a former Marathon refinery). They looked a installing equipment to convert the "“bottom” to Pet Coke, but the $500m price tag meant that it would never recover their investment. So the regional Highway Depts. complain about the high price of Asphalt, the refinery frets about losing money on every gallon of Asphalt, and the refinery’s future is never secure. There is less demand for Asphalt in the Edmonton area than in the USA, and you can’t pour it on the ground.
[quote]
We’re lead to believe tha
The Oil Cans do not run from Bakersfield (or Mojave) anymore. The ones that are still operating run from Wunpost (south of San Ardo) to Carson.
[quote user=“beaulieu”]
Murphy Siding:
Hmm…
As I understand it, the Keystone pipeline is about halfway through South Dakota from North Dakota towards Nebraska. There is an environmental group trying to get Nebraska to not permit the pipeline to cross the state. This leads me to believe a few things. 1) The pipeline may already be accross N.D. and perhaps part of Canada(?). 2) The pipeline backers must be confident that they’ll be able to go accross Nebraska, or they wouldn’t have gone this far.
From the map it looks like the pipeline just misses the SW corner of North Dakota.
Why doesn’t it make economic sense to build a refinery in Canada, near the source of the oil? It seems like then, you’d be shipping lesser volumes, and it would all be finished product.
The companies producing the oil do not own refineries, and do not want to own them. Also the crude produced in the Tar Sands is heavy crude. Heavy crude has a lot of bottom which can be hard to sell as you can only make Asphalt or Pet Coke from it. The former Marathon refinery at St. Paul, MN processes this heavy crude now, but is having a hard time selling the Asphalt at a price that makes them a profit, which means that they either charge more for their lighter products like gasoline and diesel, or they lose money (that’s why its a former Marathon refinery). They looked a installing equipment to convert the "“bottom” to Pet Coke, but the $500m price tag meant that it would never recover their investment. So the regional Highway Depts. complain about the high price of Asphalt, the refinery frets about losing money on every gallon of Asphalt, and the refinery’s future is never secure. There is less deman
Sam, refineries are optimized to process one grade of crude which is divided into light and heavy, but of course is a continuum between the two. They can process the other type but the loss of efficiency in doing so will wipe out the profit margin. If your refinery is set up to process heavy crude you have “upgrader units” to convert more of it to intermediates from which you can make Gasoline, Diesel, Heating Oil, Jet Fuel, etc. To pay for the upgrading you count on the fact that heavier crude is cheaper. Residual Oil is not quite the “Bottom” though it is right above it in the spectrum of crude oil. Because of emissions regulations demand for Residual Oil has fallen, but refineries set up to process heavy crude oil use upgraders to turn the Residual Oil into a lighter feedstock, What has been happening on the Texas coast is that production of West Texas Intermediate ( a Light Crude) has been falling over the years and so some of the refineries located along the coast have begun importing crude. Because of the added transportation cost and availability they have been buying heavy crudes particularly from Venezuela. Without upgraders they have a lot of leftover Residual Oil and Asphalt. The Valero refinery was intended to take advantage of the available Resid which was unnaturally cheap due to the glut.
BTW - Oil from Canada’s Tar Sands is heavy crude, while Oil from the Bakken Shale is light.
Thanks! Beaulieu!
I really appreciate the explanation. Kind of helps to put the situation into an understandable perspective.
Murphy,
Also, the investment of a new refinery close to the source of the oil would never be offset by the amount of oil it would process. There is simply not enough oil left. This is based on a resource curve, which is basically a bell curve of the reserves left. and a a whole on oil, we are on the downward slope.
Resource Curve - Hubbert Peak Theory
On the debate of oil by pipe or train, it was mentioned about heating oil to make it flow. I would think it would be more economical to heat it then pump it into a pipeline and use the earth as a natural insulator rather than heat it to put it on the car, then heat it to get it off the car.
Also, think about capacities, The average capacity of a tank car hauling crude would be on average 685 barrels (28770 gallons) and then figure a unit train of just say, 75 cars. That is 51,375 barrels. On the other hand, figure a pipeline with pumps capable of 50 gallons per minute (a low estimate for most older pumps) that is 1714 Barrels Per Day, at that rate, you would reach that volume of 51375 in just over 29 days. Can the train be loaded, transported, and unl
Back in the 1960’s - 1970’s, that was a debatable question. Today, not so much - if that can’t be done, then it’s time for the railroad to find a new business. I’m under the impression that 1 - 2 week turnarounds are more the norm, depending on distance, of course. I have personally watched 80 cars of ethanol being unloaded by 5 -6 guys in an older facility in less than 10 hours, so a day at each end would be plenty. Figure 20 MPH average (typical for all trains) in between = 25 500 +/- miles per day, 1,750 3,500 miles per week, and there’s your answer. [EDITED to fix the math . . . [:$] , and as follows: ] The Wikipedia article on the Keystone Pipeline cited by samfp1943 above says its length would be 2,147 miles, so a rail round trip would be 4,300+/- miles; so, say 9 days running and 1 at each end = 11 days total round trip time for an all-rail move.
[:-,] And if that’s not even enough, I’ll impersonate John G. Kneiling again and explain how the whole system should be sped up to optimize the train size, which would cut those times about in half . . . [swg]
- Paul North.