Oil by rail

Trains Magazine General Discussion
21

Kid,

The routing is to give BNSF a line haul. Port Westward is on the former SP&S line between Portland/Willbridge and Astoria. The Potash comes to the UP at Eastport ID and destination is UP served. UP would have to have rights over BNSF between Union Station or Lakeyard in Portland, and Willbridge, some 2-3 miles from Lakeyard. They do not, so UP can not get there from here without BNSF cooperation, which BNSF has no reason to give.

I know of only one other reasonable alternative which is CP-BNSF at Couts/Sweetgrass MT. I suspect this would be a shorter route. Ruling grades the same, 1%. This route would short haul CPR. They decided that they did not want to do that.

I worked for PNWR until about 5 years ago. There was talk of unit trains of corn to a new ethanol plant to be built at Port Westward. I dod not know whether or not that happened, but suspect ethanol would have gone to the water there for movement to waterfront refineries in Washington and/or California. Whether or not that happened a rail to water oil terminal at Port Westward would be no great engineering feat. Beating back the tree huggers and anti business bureaucrats that dominate Oregon would be. Port Westward is on the Columbia River some 50-60 miles below Portland. The river is deep enough for ocean going vessels as far upstream as Portland.

MP 173

A take or pay contract is one that involves a volume guarantee to the carrier with a provision that if the shipper does not make the guaranteed volume, then he pays for what he did not ship. The name comes from the concept “You take the volume or pay for the shortfall.”

Many miles of the PNWR line to Port Westward will have to be rebuilt with new bridges, ballast, ties and rail to support heavy traffic. I suspect they were most insistent on the take or pay provision and the commitment may extend only to the PNWR. It is also possible that the terminal operator’s deal is take or pay. They are in same position as

22

[quote user=“PNWRMNM”]

Kid,

The routing is to give BNSF a line haul. Port Westward is on the former SP&S line between Portland/Willbridge and Astoria. The Potash comes to the UP at Eastport ID and destination is UP served. UP would have to have rights over BNSF between Union Station or Lakeyard in Portland, and Willbridge, some 2-3 miles from Lakeyard. They do not, so UP can not get there from here without BNSF cooperation, which BNSF has no reason to give.

I know of only one other reasonable alternative which is CP-BNSF at Couts/Sweetgrass MT. I suspect this would be a shorter route. Ruling grades the same, 1%. This route would short haul CPR. They decided that they did not want to do that.

I worked for PNWR until about 5 years ago. There was talk of unit trains of corn to a new ethanol plant to be built at Port Westward. I dod not know whether or not that happened, but suspect ethanol would have gone to the water there for movement to waterfront refineries in Washington and/or California. Whether or not that happened a rail to water oil terminal at Port Westward would be no great engineering feat. Beating back the tree huggers and anti business bureaucrats that dominate Oregon would be. Port Westward is on the Columbia River some 50-60 miles below Portland. The river is deep enough for ocean going vessels as far upstream as Portland.

MP 173

A take or pay contract is one that involves a volume guarantee to the carrier with a provision that if the shipper does not make the guaranteed volume, then he pays for what he did not ship. The name comes from the concept “You take the volume or pay for the shortfall.”

Many miles of the PNWR line to Port Westward will have to be rebuilt with new bridges, ballast, ties and rail to support heavy traffic. I suspect they were most insistent on the take or pay provision and the commitment may extend only to the PNWR. It is also possible that the terminal operator’s deal is ta

23

Thank you.

24

i will tell you in the northeast guilford AKA pan am is at capacity with the oil trains infact irving fuel said they will ship the excess by barge until they up the capacity , my son still live on the western route in nh & he said its a constant parade of oil . heres some info on the trains

http://www.kjonline.com/news/oil-crossing-maineby-way-of-railroad_2012-05-29.html

25

PNWRMNM correctly addressed the line haul reasoning for oil not being moved via UP south of Eastport, ID (not yet, anyway). Any significant addition in traffic down the SI Eastport to Spokane would begin to push the limits of the line’s current capacity. It’s dark, TWC. Which is why it’s one of the early routes that were chosen for PTC testing. And why siding extensions were done in recent years, with at least one brand new siding slated to be added in the near future. But that hasn’t kept UP from adding new trains to the manifests, grain, and potash that already run here. Unit canola trains have been showing up on UP south of Eastport this fall and winter, destined for points in central California.

As for oil, in addition to the ones CP hands off to BNSF in northwest WA, there are several EACH DAY coming west via BNSF to two, possibly three refineries on Puget Sound that are currently set up to handle unit trains. And the push to add more refining and oil export terminals in WA and OR is already underway. Port Westward is also part of the proposed coal barge operation that would involve Port of Morrow at Boardman, OR. Here’s a recent Northwest TV report on the coal export battle that may shed some light on the region’s ongoing environmental and logistical hurdles, which are already beginning to pose resistance to the increase in oil transport. It seems like a pretty decently-balanced story, considering that most of the region’s other reporting has been unable to say almost anything positive about coal or railroads. However, toward the end of the program they utilize the inflated figures of 50-60 new coal trains a day being added to this area, which anti-coal groups have been citing as if they were solid fact. BNSF’s Matt Rose has already refuted those figures to local media. BNSF can’t handle that many new trains in the Northwest without massive increases to capacity. In fact, the increase in coal and oil traffic to the Northwest was a prime motiv

26

All three rail routes to St. John, NB, CN, CP/MM&A, BNSF/CSX/PAR are seeing Oil Trains destined for Irving Oil. Plus CSX is also delivering Oil to the Buckeye Partners terminal at Albany, NY with final delivery by barge or Shuttle Tanker to Irving Oil.

27

Thank you. I suspected it was something like that. I just didn’t know the names of the locations involved.

As to the routing via Sweetgrass, MT, isn’t BNSF’s Northern Transcontinental line west of Shelby, MT to Seattle already capacity constrained as well? They might simply not have enough space to add more trains of any kind on that routing.

Thank you everyone for your insights.

Bruce

28

To the best of my knowledge, which is no longer local, there is no particular problem, except perhaps between Spokane and Pasco where BN during the “Oil management” era pulled out the former SP&S line and forced all traffic onto the inferior former NP line. This was a huge mistake and BNSF is paying for it every day.

The BNSF’s most serious capacity constraint is Stevens Pass between Wenatchee and Seattle on the former GN line. This is due mostly to the 7.79 mile long Cascade Tunnel and the need to blow at least most of the smoke out of it before letting the next train enter. Result is about 24 trains per day capacity, with two wasted on ATK. General plan is to run one pair of carload trains each day, and then fill with intermodal trains. When the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma were busy, say 2005-2007, BNSF ran some stack trains via the Columbia River Gorge, which is the only alternate routing and definately the long way around for intermodal.

Import/export traffic is down and the Canadian ports have taken the growth that would have otherwise gone to Puget Sound for at least the past decade, so I think the Stevens Pass line is not now at its physical limits like it was then. Bruce Kelly has more current info on that than I do.

Mac

29

Isn’t there a possibility that moving these Oil trains Pan Am will slow the Downeaster trains between Lowell Jct and north of Portland at either Royal Jct / Yarmouth Jct ?

http://www.kjonline.com/news/oil-crossing-maineby-way-of-railroad_2012-05-29.html

30

[quote]

Enbridge Losing Bakken Oil Business to Railroads, Refiner Says
Bloomberg (Online) By Edward Welsch January 16, 2013

Enbridge Inc’s North Dakota pipeline system has been underused for the past three months as railroads move more oil out of the Bakken shale play, a refining company told U.S. regulators.

Enbridge’s plans to expand its pipeline network out of the Bakken won’t stop railroads from taking business, Flint Hills Resources LLC, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., said in a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“This trend is not temporary,” Flint Hills said. “Rail transportation is becoming more competitive and will continue to take barrels away from the Enbridge North Dakota system.”

Railways have emerged as a competitor to pipelines as production from shale fields has grown faster than pipeline space. While rail is typically more expensive than pipelines, railcars can reach markets that pipelines don’t, yielding higher prices for producers.

Flint Hills, which operates the 330,000-barrel-a-day Pine Bend refinery in Minnesota, filed the document with FERC as part of its opposition to a surcharge on the North Dakota system proposed by Enbridge.

“We are seeing reduced volumes on our North Dakota system as some producers seek alternate transportation options to take advantage of favorable oil pricing in other markets,” Graham White, an Enbridge spokesman in Calgary, said in an e-mail. Volumes will increase as new regional market access projects are finished later this year, he said.

North Dakota produced 747,000 barrels a day in October, up 50 percent from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. An estimated 52 percent of the crude moved by rail, versus 38 percent by pipeline, according to the North Dakota Pipeline Authority.

Top Shipper

The largest oil rail-car shipper in the Bakken is Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC, owned b

31

What’s going on with the old NP Stampede Pass line that was reopened a few years back?

32

BaltACD, thanks for the report from Bloomberg news. I normally don’t get a chance to see those reports unless someone like yourself posts them here.

Bruce

33

Cat Food, go here:http://issuu.com/railwayage/docs/railwayage_magazine_november_2012

Head to page 43.

34

The Albany oil trains in question load at the Global Partners Stampede, ND transload facility, 16.5 miles west of Flaxton on the old Soo Line Whitetail Sub. Although the trackage is owned by Canadia Pacific, it is operated by the Dakota, Missouri Valley, & Western as their Western Sub. However, CP recently took back operation of the oil trains to Stampede.

Once loaded they run east to Flaxton, west (directionally north) about another 10 miles into Canada at Portal, and then eastward over the Great Lakes and to Albany via the Canadian routing.