While environmentalists and others are battling new pipelines around North America – the amount of train traffic hauling Alberta crude is on the rise.
This may become more of a permanent fixture. An indication of this. One company, Cenovus, has appointed its first ever vice-president of rail operations.
Courtesy: Oil Change International
So far the Calgary-based company has shipped eight train loads of bitumen. For the curious – the trains pull up to 100 car and transport as much as 60-thousand barrels at a time.
The trains comprise up to 105 railcars that carry as much as 60,000 barrels of oil at a time.
Oil sands producer MEG Energy Corp. train shipments helped boost the companies returns by more than two dollars a barrel.
Despite that pipelines are still the cheaper way to transport the product.
Right now – according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers there are currently 200-thousand barrels being shipped by rail per day – within two years that could jump to 700-thousand.
Leave a Reply