Tag Archives: New Mexico

Bakken Crude, California, Crude By Rail, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Oil prices

California Crude Trains: How Much Oil Is Actually Coming In and Where Is It Coming From?

Repost from North American Shale Blog
[Editor: Notwithstanding the disparaging remarks about crude-by-rail opponents and politics in California, this is an interesting report by a pro-industry analyst.  – RS]

California Crude Trains: How Much Oil Is Actually Coming In and Where Is It Coming From?

By Gabriel Collins
California has become ground zero for legal opposition to crude-by-rail projects. Opponents decry derailments, toxic vapors, and other ills.[i]  Yet despite the dire images painted by crude-by-rail’s opponents, the reality on the ground in California has been quite mundane thus far. The high-water mark to date for California railborne crude supplies was approximately 39 thousand barrels of oil per day (kbd) in December 2013 (Exhibit 1).

To put this number in perspective, California refineries typically process an average of around 1.7 million barrels per day of crude – meaning that at the crude-by-rail peak, only about one barrel in 50 of the state’s crude supply came in by rail.[ii]  Presently, the number is closer to one barrel in 100 – certainly not the overwhelming flood of trains opponents fear. And to that point, even supplying one-quarter of California’s total crude oil needs would only require about six to seven crude oil unit trains per day. To put this in context, the Colton Crossing east of Los Angeles by itself can see more than 100 freight trains per day.[iii]

Exhibit 1: California Crude by Rail Sources

exhibit 1
Source: California Energy Commission, Alberta Office of Statistics and Information

Where California’s Railborne Oil Imports Come From

For much of the past six years, light, low-sulfur Bakken crude and heavier, higher-sulfur Western Canadian Select (“WCS”) dominated rail imports into California. Canadian supplies show a clear correlation with how cheap WCS is relative to Maya, a heavy crude oil from Mexico that is shipped by tanker and offers a proxy for what heavy, sour, waterborne crude oil imports into California will cost. The spread between WCS and Maya prices matters because it only makes sense for refiners to purchase WCS barrels if they are sufficiently discounted that the buyer still comes out ahead after adjusting for rail transport costs, which can amount to approximately $20/barrel for manifest trains and $15/barrel for oil moved on unit trains.[iv]

For reference, “manifest trains” are mixed cargo trains where a 100-car freight train might include 20 or 30 tanker cars carrying oil. Unit trains, on the other hand, carry only one type of freight, meaning that all 100 to 120 cars carry crude oil. This maximizes economies of scale and significantly reduces transportation costs. Shipments of Canadian crude oil into California traditionally rode on manifest trains, but in November 2014, Union Pacific brought its first unit train of crude oil from Western Canada into California, to a terminal near Bakersfield.[v] The route is currently dormant as WCS crude’s discount to Maya was less than $10 per barrel in January 2015, according to official price data, making it uneconomical to import the Canadian oil by rail.[vi] Unit trains’ lower costs relative to the previously used manifest trains will likely have oil trains rolling from Alberta to California once again if the WCS discount widens to around $15 per barrel.

California has also seen increased supplies of light, low-sulfur crude oil from New Mexico in recent months. The most likely explanation for this is that continued strong oil production in Texas, New Mexico, and the Midcontinent are inundating the Gulf Coast with light, sweet barrels. Indeed, this author’s models using official Energy Information Administration data strongly suggest that Gulf Coast refineries have hit a physical “wall” where they are not able to sustainably use more than 65 percent domestic crude oil to supply their plants, because facilities designed for heavier, higher-sulfur oils cannot run at maximal efficiency with light, low-sulfur crude feedstocks.[vii] This crowded market reduces the potential realized value of crude to certain Permian Basin producers and makes California attractive as a clearing destination because crude can be railed from the Permian Basin to California for as little as $7-8/bbl, according to Tesoro.[viii]

What the Future May Hold

The bottom line is that California’s existing crude-by-rail terminal capacity is massively underutilized at present. The state’s two largest facilities alone – Kinder Morgan’s terminal at Richmond and new terminal near Bakersfield – can offload more than 140 kbd at full capacity. In comparison, crude-by-rail import volumes were less than 20 kbd in December 2014, the last month for which data are available (Exhibit 2). 

Exhibit 2: California Crude by Rail Capacity vs. Actual Import Volumes

exhibit 2
Source: California Energy Commission, Company Reports

Current terminal capacity is sufficient for approximately two unit trains per day of crude – 140 to 150 kbd – to enter the state. California’s fickle politics make forecasting crude-by-rail volumes a tough exercise. That said, this author believes that if oil prices recover to at least $75/bbl, California’s railborne crude imports will likely exceed 200 kbd by early 2016. Under those conditions, existing terminals would increase their capacity utilization and larger price differentials would attract additional Canadian heavy crude, as well as Bakken and other light, sweet grades from the Rocky Mountain states and the Permian.

[i] “GROUPS SUE TO STOP DAILY 100-CAR TRAIN DELIVERIES OF TOXIC CRUDE OIL TO BAKERSFIELD TERMINAL,” Earthjustice, January 29, 2015, http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2015/groups-sue-to-stop-daily-100-car-train-deliveries-of-toxic-crude-oil-to-bakersfield-terminal; See also Alexander Obrecht, “Environmental Groups Ramp Up the Crude-by-Rail Fight in the Courtroom,” BakerHostetler North America Shale Blog, October 6, 2014, http://www.northamericashaleblog.com/2014/10/06/environmental-groups-ramp-up-the-crude-by-rail-fight-in-the-courtroom/
[ii] “FACTBOX – California crude sources and oil-by-rail projects,” Reuters, July 21, 2014, http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL2N0PM26S20140721
[iii] “Colton Flyover Supports L.A.-Area Business,” Union Pacific Railroad, September 5, 2013, http://www.uprr.com/newsinfo/community_ties/2013/september/0905_colton.shtml
[iv]Yadullah Hussein, “Oil-by-rail economics suffers amid narrowing spreads,” Financial Post, February 9, 2015, http://business.financialpost.com/2015/02/09/oil-by-rail-economics-suffers-amid-narrowing-spreads/?__lsa=c711-5acd
[v] Bruce Kelly, “UP begins Canada-to-California CBR service,” Railway Age, November 25, 2014, http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/tag/CBR/feed.html
[vi] “Heavy Crude Oil Reference Prices, Monthly,” Alberta Office of Statistics and Information, https://osi.alberta.ca/osi-content/Pages/OfficialStatistic.aspx?ipid=941 (last accessed March 18, 2015)
[vii] Detailed explanation of models available; please contact author at gcollins @ bakerlaw.com.
[viii] Company investor presentation, September 2014, “Rail Costs to Clear Bakken,” slide 11, http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=79122&p=irol-presentations
Bakken Crude, Canadian refineries, Export of North American crude, North American light crude oils, Oil prices

U.S. exporting more crude oil to Canada

Repost from Bloomberg Business News

Canadian Refiners Set to Buy More U.S. Oil With Wider Discount

By Robert Tuttle, March 18, 2015 4:14 PM PDT 

(Bloomberg) — Cheaper North American oil is poised to replace West African and Middle East cargoes at eastern Canadian refineries with U.S. crude prices at the lowest level compared with the international benchmark in 14 months.

Imports to Canada from outside North America averaged 244,089 barrels a day this month through March 15, down 27 percent from a year earlier, according to New York-based ClipperData, which tracks tanker shipments.

Canada, the world’s fifth-largest oil supplier, produces most of its oil in the western province of Alberta and exports it south to the U.S. A lack of pipelines means Canada’s eastern refineries depend on imports by tanker and train.

U.S. export “volumes have been growing pretty exponentially,” Katherine Spector, a commodities strategist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in New York, said by phone Wednesday. U.S. oil is “going to Eastern Canadian refineries and displacing waterborne light crude.”

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 478,000 barrels a day the week ended March 13, up almost eightfold from a year earlier, preliminary data from the Energy Information Administration show. Canada, the only country that U.S. producers can export to without restrictions, receives the bulk of the shipments.

Oil has flowed north as West Texas Intermediate crude’s discount to Brent averaged $9.43 a barrel this month from $2.41 in January as U.S. stockpiles rose to a 458.5 million barrels, the most in decades.

The U.S. displaced Algeria in 2013 as Canada’s biggest source of imported oil and accounted for about half of imports in the first eight months of last year, the country’s National Energy Board said in a November report. The trend was driven by availability of tight oil from North Dakota as well as Texas, New Mexico and Colorado.

Bakken crude from North Dakota traded at about $40 a barrel today versus $55 for oil from West Africa, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Especially with lower prices, a difference of a dollar or so in transport costs is significant,” Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts, said by phone Wednesday. “If you can bring it in from the U.S. rather than West Africa, it’s a little closer and cheaper.”

Expanded rail capacity has linked U.S. oil producers with Canada, Spector said. The movement parallels the movement of Bakken crude to U.S. East Coast by rail, which cut the region’s imports of crude from Nigeria by half in two years and from Algeria by 81 percent, EIA data show.

“The maritime provinces of eastern Canada do resemble the U.S. East Coast in many ways,” Antoine Halff, head of the International Energy Agency’s oil industry and markets division, said in a March 18 phone interview. “When Bakken crude started being railed to the U.S. East Coast in significant quantities, it displaced imports from West Africa.”

Crude By Rail, Light sweet crude, Oil Industry

Big oil producers in Texas shifting to crude-by-rail

Repost from Midland Reporter-Telegram
[Editor: Significant quote: ““The Permian Basin may be a lot larger than the Bakken and Eagle Ford combined….”  Note: I have added a map of the Permian Basin below this article.  – RS]

Basin operators increase interest in shipping oil by rail

By Mella McEwen. July 31, 2014

Oil Trains

Billions of dollars have been pouring into the Permian Basin in recent years as pipelines rush to help producers move their crude and natural gas to market.

Despite the investment in new pipelines and gathering lines and expansion of existing lines, takeaway capacity remains tight and producers are increasingly turning to the railroads for relief.

Using trains to move crude to market is nothing new, points out Bruce Carswell, West Texas operations manager for Iowa Pacific Holdings. “There has been, over time, crude oil moving by rail out of the Permian Basin almost since the beginning” of oil production, he said.

The increase in pipeline construction has not kept pace with the increase in production from drilling activity, he said, and the railroads his company operators are seeing increased shipments across the board.

Judging by the ringing of his phone, Christopher Keene, president and chief executive officer of Rangeland Energy, says demand for moving Permian Basin crude by rail is growing. His Sugar Land-based company is in the process of constructing the Rangeland Integrated Oil System in the Delaware Basin. A rail terminal is under construction near Loving, New Mexico that will open in October with truck-to-rail transload operations. Initial capacity will be 10,000 barrels a day, eventually growing to high-speed unit train loading capacity of over 100,000 barrels a day. It will be served by the BNSF Railway.

Rangeland is also planning its RIO Pipeline, which will connect the new RIO Hub in Loving to the RIO State Line Terminal and then Midland, which will provide connections to various terminals and interstate pipelines to Cushing and the Gulf Coast.

Carswell’s company operates two railroads, the Texas-New Mexico from Monahans to Hobbs and Lovington and the West-Texas Lubbock, which runs from Lubbock to Seagraves and a line that runs from Levelland to Whiteface.

While new pipelines will come online later this year and into next year, Carswell said, “But my observation is they’re drilling a lot more wells, too.”

Producers, observed Khory Ramage, president of Ironhorse Energy Partners, didn’t expect as big an increase in production as has been seen.

“It just accelerated,” said Ramage, whose company is building a rail terminal at Artesia. The company, which he founded with brother Kyle, already has laid 7,000 feet of track and connected to the BNSF main line. The first phase of the development calls for 18,000 feet of track to accommodate rail cars unloading proppants. By the time development of the unit train terminal is done, there will be nine-and-a-half miles of track with a loop track to hold 200 loaded railcars at once.

“The Permian Basin may be a lot larger than the Bakken and Eagle Ford combined,” he said. “Bringing production into and out of the market is vital.” He reported that his company is talking to two different entities about moving their production.

Keene said his company “just landed the 800 pound gorilla out there in the Permian Basin,” a name he was not yet ready to announce.

The rising use of rail to move crude production has caught the public’s attention recently in the aftermath of the derailment in Canada that killed over 40 people as well as derailments that have resulted in spills. New safety regulations are being proposed by the federal government, something Carswell said the industry welcomes because it has been waiting for the federal government to approve new standards for awhile.

“There’s been a fair amount of effort to improve the safety aspect of moving any flammable liquid,” he said.

Keene said he is glad there is a conversation about safety and said he sees three areas where change is occurring or needed: Safer rail cars need to be designed, the railways themselves need to be maintained and speed in certain areas should be addressed.

“I’m a firm believer rail is here to stay,” Keene said, “if it’s done the right way, in a safe and environmentally friendly manner. I think the industry is going to continue getting better.”

For his part, Ramage sees a need for both rail and pipelines, saying there will always be options for rail. He saw the impact on rail demand with the rise in production from the Bakken in North Dakota and Wyoming. That prompted him and his brother to form Ironhorse.

Keene said the Delaware Basin is different in that the crude seems to want to move by pipeline, but when it can’t, for whatever reason, producers are turning to railroads.

Another benefit of railroads, Carswell said, is they offer producers flexibility as to where to send their commodities, especially given the price differentials. “This week, shipments may go to the Gulf Coast but next month they may go to the West Coast or the East Coast.”

“What’s predominantly driving this is the price differentials” between West Texas Intermediate-Midland, West Texas Intermediate Cushing and even Louisiana Light Sweet, Keene said, a gap that has reached as much as $20. “That’s huge,” he said.

Another driver, he said, is pipeline constraints, and even though significant new and expanded capacity is expected in the coming year, he said price differentials are still playing a role.

Ramage said flexibility is important, especially as traditional pipeline destinations like Cushing, Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast are becoming inundated with light sweet crude. In the 1990s, he noted, refineries were retrofitted to process heavier, more sulfur-laden crudes that were being imported, making them slower to respond to the rise of light sweet crudes from unconventional shale plays.

That quality, Keene said, is the third driver in rail demand. “A lot of the new crude is outside pipeline specifications” of 42 API Gravity, though some pipelines have inched that up to 44 API Gravity. Much of the crudes now coming from shale plays are 45 to 55 API Gravity, he said and can even be considered condensate or natural gasoline.

Producers then have three options, Keene said: Rail the crude to a splitter, where the condensate is split into different components like distillates and naphtha, send it by rail to Canada for use as diluents or send it by rail to coastal terminals where, hopefully, the government will classify it as stabilized condensates that can be exported overseas.

Allowing exports could be key to the industry’s future, Ramage said.

“The only concern is if the government doesn’t consider the importance of lifting the export ban,” he said. “We may see prices decrease and the energy revolution we’re experiencing slow down.

Map of the Permian Basin:

 

 

For safe and healthy communities…