A Tank Car Train for Hire

News flash!  ---Rail transportation has become a very big deal in the business of transporting crude oil, NGLs and petroleum products!!----The whole world does not revolve around pipelines!   Yup, the media has discovered that hydrocarbons can ride the rails.   Never mind that liquid hydrocarbons have been moving in tank cars for 150 years.   The news is that rail is having a market impact like never before.  And that is because there has been a strategic shift in the way rail transportation is being used by the petroleum industry.   In Part II of our series we’ll dissect the strategies being used and discuss how things are evolving in the world of tank cars.

Unlike pipelines that take a long time to build and only deliver to a handful of destinations, rail freight cars offer the flexibility to deliver anywhere across North America. The rail freight industry can load, store and transport different NGLs (including those NGL products that must be transported under high pressure) as well as crude and petroleum products. Rail infrastructure is mostly already in place so new routes can easily be brought on line. That’s why rail freight has been used successfully by the energy industry for over 100 years as - a “pipeline on wheels”. Today we look at the rail tank car business for moving NGL and petroleum products.