Typically there would be large tanks at the site. They would rarely plan to go directly from the rail to the barge as scheduling becomes a bigger problem and any other problems on one delays the other. You want both to keep moving product in or out while they are there. Large tanks acts as a buffer to prevent holding up the traffic.
Indigo Resources Ltd Plans Rail-To-Barge Crude Oil And Petroleum Terminal In Osceola, Arkansas
http://www.areadevelopment.com/newsItems/4-8-2013/indigo-resources-oil-terminal-facility-osceola-arkansas347848.shtml
Crude-by-Barge
http://www.maritime-executive.com/magazine/CrudebyBarge-2013-10-15
Now there’s crude-by-barge – another business, like crude-by-rail, that basically didn’t exist two years ago. And it’s all because of the shale oil boom, which has added two million barrels a day of new production in just the last two years. That new production initially overwhelmed the existing infrastructure of pipelines and terminals, and producers had a hard time getting their output to refiners. Crude-by-rail helped alleviate the bottleneck, but crude-by-barge was the vital missing link.
It began on the inland waterways. About a year ago Houston-based Kirby Corp. (NYSE: KEX) announced that it had begun barging Bakken crude from St. Louis down the Mississippi to refineries in Baton Rouge and downstate Louisiana. The crude arrived in St. Louis by unit train and was offloaded there onto Kirby barges. The company had transported Canadian tar sands from St. Louis before, but this was the first shipment of Bakken crude.
Kirby, of course, is the nation’s largest tank barge operator with more than 25 percent of the inland fleet of 3,100. American Commercial Lines of Jeffersonville, Indiana is a distant second with about 10 percent of the market. You can buy Kirby stock. You can’t buy ACL, which is a private company, like most of the major barge operators, including Canal Barge (#3), Ingram (#5) and Florida Marine (#6). You can also buy #7 Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD), a Houston-based midstream energy company. Enterprise is not just tank barges – it operates pipelines, storage terminals, natural gas processing facilities and more and, as its name indicates, offers all the benefits of a master limited partnership, including an attractive dividend.
While there’s nothing new about tank barge movements on the inland waterways, what is new is the cargo. Tank barges traditionally carry petrochemicals and natural gas feedstocks to the nation’s chemical plants, or else bottom-of-the-barrel stuff like asphalt and tar for road work and construction. Transporting crude oil is new, and it’s safe to say that crude-by-barge was made possible by crude-by-rail.
The economics are compelling. A typical 30,000-barrel tank barge can carry the equivalent of 45 rail tank cars at about one-third the cost. Compared to a pipeline, barges are cheaper by 20-35 percent, depending on the route. And for barge operators, it’s a win-win: They can transport crude oil down the Mississippi to Gulf Coast refineries and haul refined products back up the river to chemical plants and other end-users.
The Mississippi and its tributaries are not the only beneficiary of the rail-barge connection. Canadian Pacific (NYSE: CP) is moving Bakken crude by rail to Albany, New York, where it is transferred onto barges for transit down the Hudson River to the Phillips 66 refinery in Bayway, New Jersey. Current capacity: 160,000 barrels per day.