Crude oil pipelines out of the Permian are filled to capacity and the differentials between crude in Midland and in Cushing and Gulf Coast destination markets are wide and likely to widen. That has spurred Permian producers and shippers to consider every possible option for moving incremental barrels out of the play, including two old short-term standbys: tanker trucks and crude-by-rail. Cost isn’t a major issue — the price spread and the Permian’s low break-evens will probably justify the higher expenses associated with trucking and railing crude. But that doesn’t mean that badly needed truck and rail capacity can appear with a poof as if by magic. No, even wads of cash may not be enough to quickly round up the hundreds — thousands? — of trucks and drivers that would be required to make a significant dent in the Permian’s takeaway shortfall. And developing brand new crude-by-rail terminals can take a year or more — too much time to address the play’s more immediate needs. Today, we continue our look at the frenzied efforts under way to move more Permian crude to market.
Despite their recent fall-off, crude oil prices remain at or near their highest level since the fall of 2014, and crude production in the Permian — now about 3.2 MMb/d — has recently been rising by an average of about 70 Mb/d per month, or more than 800 Mb/d per year (see Figure 1).
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