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Phillips 66 signs deals to move crude by rail
What railroad(s)!!!
@DavidStreeter I think the BNSF would be taking it out of Berthold. I’m guessing once it reaches Chicago for refineries to the East Coast it would either go NS or CSX
Why transload the oil at Tacoma and barge it to Ferndale? The BNSF goes to and thru Ferndale already. I’m reasonably sure a rail spur exsist to the refinery already.
A lot of the refineries on either the West Coast or the East Coast do not have direct rail connections. They were built to use cheap overseas crude oil so it came in by barge and often left the same way to go to distributors. On the East coast twice a day trains are going to the Port of Albany NY from the Bakken where it is then loaded onto barges to go to refineries along the coast. That’s why there is refineries that have to get crude by barge.
Based on the article, David, the routing of the consists would be up to Enbridge to determine. I suspect that BNSF will be the initial class I, but interchange with UP might be necessary to reach some of Phillips west coast facilities. I have no clue where their east coast facilities are located, since both east and west coast facilities are the result of mergers. Phillips original headquarters were in Bartlesville, OK, prior to merging with Conoco. I believe the west coast refineries are the result of merging with Union 76, which had acquired its east coast refineries in a prior merger with Pure. Bottom line is that this agreement shows the flexibility that rail transport has over pipelines.
The Sunoco Refinery in Philly is building a rail yard to hold Bakken oil trains at rthe present time.