Canadian National

RBN Energy estimates that by 2015 rail terminal capacity to load heavy bitumen “dilbit” crude in Western Canada will be about 800 Mb/d. Unload terminals hoping to receive that crude on the Gulf Coast will have about 1 MMb/d capacity by 2015. Moving that crude by rail will compete directly with planned pipelines expected to be in service by 2015. Yet the details show only about 25 percent of Canadian rail terminals will be able to load railbit crude, which has less diluent. And the terminals that do handle railbit will not be handle larger unit trains. Today we continue our analysis of Canadian crude transport options.

As much as 240 Mb/d of light sweet crude from North Dakota is currently being shipped from the Bakken to St. James LA in what has become a pipeline on wheels. More crude is also moving to the Gulf Coast from Western Canada by rail and new destination terminals are being developed along the Mississippi River. But increased pipeline capacity to the Gulf Coast is a growing competitive threat to these rail destinations. Today we survey rail destination terminals East of the Mississippi.