What could possibly go wrong?
Posted on 12/17/2014 6:51:30 AM PST by thackney
Oil producers in North Dakota don't seem ready to give up their rail cars just yet.
Enterprise Product Partners has shelved plans for a pipeline out of the prolific Bakken Shale after the company was unable to secure enough crude shipment deals along the route to make the project viable.
The proposed 340,000 barrel-per-day line would have run 1,200 miles from the oil fields of North Dakota to the nation's largest oil transportation hub in Cushing, Okla. Houston-based Enterprise Product Partners originally announced that it would solicit shipping commitments from Sept. 4 to Oct. 17 - a process called an open season.
It expanded the sign-up period to Nov. 14, then called off the project Friday with a short announcement.
Pipelines linking Bakken crude to markets are facing competition from trains. Pipelines generally provide cheaper transit, but rail has offered producers a more flexible path that can reach the East and West coasts, where crude can realize higher prices, Skip York of consultant group Wood Mackenzie said.
On the East and West coasts, barrels of Bakken crude often bring prices in line with the more expensive international Brent crude, rather than the U.S. benchmark price for West Texas Intermediate crude delivered at the Midwest hub in Cushing, York said. Bakken barrels sent east or west also avoid direct competition with oil from Texas' Eagle Ford and Permian plays.
"What this open season suggests is that the producers still see some value in having at least some production on rail," he said.
North Dakota producers have shipped more than 800,000 barrels per day of crude by rail in recent months compared with 100,000 barrels per day inn 2011, according to North Dakota state data.
The big increase in rail transport has raised safety concerns and pushed regulators to examine hazardous materials_shipping...
(Excerpt) Read more at houstonchronicle.com ...
The competing pipeline that will be built.
ENERGY TRANSFER PARTNERS’ BOARD APPROVES 1,100-MILE BAKKEN PIPELINE
http://www.pipelineandgasjournal.com/energy-transfer-partners%E2%80%99-board-approves-1100-mile-bakken-pipeline
August 2014
Energy Transfer Partners’ Board of Directors has approved building the 1,100-mile Bakken Pipeline to transport crude supply from strategic receipt points in the Bakken/Three Forks production area in North Dakota to Patoka, IL where the Bakken Pipeline will interconnect with the company’s existing 30-inch Trunkline Pipeline, which is being converted from natural gas to crude transportation service.
From Patoka, shippers can access multiple markets, including Midwest and East Coast markets by rail as well as the Gulf Coast, via Trunkline, to the Nederland, TX crude oil terminal of Sunoco Logistics Partners L.P. Energy Transfer will develop a rail terminal facility in Illinois to access East Coast refineries.
ETP has secured multiple long-term binding contractual commitments from shippers to fully support construction of a 30-inch pipeline to Patoka. The pipeline will provide 320,000 bpd of capacity. ETP could increase capacity of the Bakken Pipeline based on additional customer demand. The company has begun ordering steel and negotiating construction contracts for the Bakken Pipeline and expects to have the pipeline built and in service, and the Trunkline crude oil conversion project completed and in service, by the end of 2016. ETP is in discussion with SXL regarding a significant equity participation by SXL.
ETP’s directors also approved building a pipeline to transport natural gas from processing facilities located in the prolific Marcellus and Utica Shale areas to numerous market regions in the United States and Canada. In conjunction with this announcement, ETP announced signing long-term agreements with multiple shippers and launching a binding open season.
The natural gas pipeline is sized to transport 2.2 Bcf/d, however, depending on additional shipper commitments, the project likely will be expanded to transport up to 3.25 Bcf/d. The first 400 miles of the project will enable the flow of gas from processing plants and interconnections in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio to points of interconnection with Energy Transfer’s existing Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line and another Midwest pipeline near Defiance, OH.
Additionally, a 195-mile segment will be built from the Defiance area through Michigan and ultimately to the Union Gas Dawn Hub (Dawn) near Sarnia, Canada, providing producers with access to diverse markets and end-users in Michigan and Canada with access to Marcellus and Utica supplies.
Plans call for initial service to the Midwest Hub located near Defiance and Gulf Coast markets by the 4Q 2016, and the remaining service to markets in Michigan and Canada by the 2Q 2017.
It appears that
(1) being a billionaire railroad owner and
(2) having a direct connection to the fascist regime in the White Hut
will provide benefits! EPP and TSX get hosed.
Warren likes his subsidies.
Why else does he gobble up wind farms ?
This is just another example of the two critical ways we need to look at anything liberals are involved in:
1. Cui Bono, or who benefits, when bs surrounds and covers up or shrouds their overt or covert actions with any activity with libs in control of where money and power can be gained.
2. Follow the money after #1.
The answer to who benefits when the Keystone pipeline is killed/stalled is simple.
Warren Buffets owns/controls most of the railroad old tank cars and the railroad which bring the oil from Canada to US refineries.
How many of the Rat $inators get a lot of money now and in IOUs from Buffet to keep Keystone dead?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3228704/posts
Warren Buffett’s Massive Railroad Lobby
Muckety ^ | May 5, 2014 | Laurie Bennett
Posted on 11/19/2014, 8:07:04 AM by upbeat5
What do train whistles and Warren Buffett have in common?
If you answered old-fashioned charm, you’re wrong.
The Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based think tank, calls the avuncular billionaire “the man behind the exploding trains.”
Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns Union Tank Car Company, North America’s largest leaser of tank cars. Berkshire also owns BNSF Railway Company, which moves many of those cars.
Again the rat controlled MSM has hidden this important fact from us.
This pipeline to the south was cancelled because during open season, not enough oil producers wanted to send their oil through the pipeline, to Cushing, Oklahoma.
Cushing has too much oil coming in and not enough demand.
At nearly the same time, a pipeline from the Bakken going towards the Midwest is going forward. It is delivering supply to an area that is paying better because there is not as much supply in the area.
What could possibly go wrong?
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