Western Railroad Discussion > More Canadian Crude on the way?

The Toronto Globe & Mail has an article about the uptick in pumping for Western Canada Select, a grade of heavy crude + bitumen.  WCS has been in demand by midwestern US refineries, even as some higher cost US wells are being shut in.

The article says that the spread between WCS and the US benchmark has widened again, so Canadian crude is relatively less expensive. Even as US spot prices moved from the mid $40 range to a little over $60. The collapse of the Canadian dollar, and the expression of Canadian drilling costs in Canadian currency means the oil is cheaper to US buyers than it had been.  Shipment by rail all the way to the Gulf isn't cost effective right now, but many US destinations are buying the oil.

Good for the railroads

Axeon an asphalt refiner in the town of Thorfare here in south jersey has been really ramping up production ... their intake of Canadien crude has almost quadrupled since they took over the facility 2 years ago ... their cars have been coming in on NS 38G but numbers are reaching unit train counts lately ...

Posted from Android

Out_Of_Service Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Axeon an asphalt refiner in the town of Thorfare
> here in south jersey has been really ramping up
> production ... their intake of Canadien crude has
> almost quadrupled since they took over the
> facility 2 years ago ... their cars have been
> coming in on NS 38G but numbers are reaching unit
> train counts lately ...
>
> Posted from Android

More unit trains, that's good if it happens!

How do these shipments get to Allentown, and onto the 38G?  Down the CP and NS from Binghamton, or on regular movements from the west? 

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Out_Of_Service Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Axeon an asphalt refiner in the town of
> Thorfare
> > here in south jersey has been really ramping up
> > production ... their intake of Canadien crude
> has
> > almost quadrupled since they took over the
> > facility 2 years ago ... their cars have been
> > coming in on NS 38G but numbers are reaching
> unit
> > train counts lately ...
> >
> > Posted from Android
>
> More unit trains, that's good if it happens!
>
> How do these shipments get to Allentown, and onto
> the 38G?  Down the CP and NS from Binghamton, or
> on regular movements from the west? 

i don't have the answer for that ... i'll see if a friend of mine can do a trace ...

edit:

just asked my friend ... he said CP interchanges the Canadien crude to NS at Bensenville which then gets handled to Bellevue and forwarded to Conway ... 14G to Allentown ... 38G to Camden

2nd edit: an updated NS train symbol list for Bellevue,Oh was just posted on the eastern board ... 16N now makes a direct delivery to Allentown ...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/15 10:12 by Out_Of_Service.

Thanks for the info and the follow up

Just to clarify a bit, Bensenville (IL) is right south of Chicago O'Hare Airport and was a MILW hump yard, now just a CP switching operation after I saw terribly inefficient operations there a year ago. Maybe they have improved. But if crude is arriving as single car or cuts in CP train from the west (could be ND or AB) that would be the logical place to do it. If unit trains they could go that way CP to NS but avoid Bensenville by other routes which have their own problems. Also, it is hard for me to believe if NS had a large block of crude (say 25 cars or more in one group) they would take them to Allentown and the circuitiously to philly area without going direct via Abrams.

tp117 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just to clarify a bit, Bensenville (IL) is right
> south of Chicago O'Hare Airport and was a MILW
> hump yard, now just a CP switching operation after
> I saw terribly inefficient operations there a year
> ago. Maybe they have improved. But if crude is
> arriving as single car or cuts in CP train from
> the west (could be ND or AB) that would be the
> logical place to do it. If unit trains they could
> go that way CP to NS but avoid Bensenville by
> other routes which have their own problems. Also,
> it is hard for me to believe if NS had a large
> block of crude (say 25 cars or more in one group)
> they would take them to Allentown and the
> circuitiously to philly area without going direct
> via Abrams.

On one of the earlier threads about 38G/39G, there was some discussion about
1) running a train with the cut, or two cuts directly from Harrisburg to Pavonia yard twice a week
2) dropping the cuts at Reading, and having the 38G pick them up there, cutting a day off the cycle
3) adding the cuts at Bensenville or Elkhart to a 65R (or whatever the CP train to DelCity is)  etc train and dropping them at Harrisburg

some of the difficulty may be that the cuts used to show up as 3-4 cars today, nothing tomorrow, 15 on Friday, etc. But from what O-o-S says, it sounds like the numbers are way up now.