Trains once revolutionized the U.S. oil trade by getting barrels to market faster than horse and buggy. Some 150 years later crude is hopping the rails again as today’s oil barons look to cash in on the biggest domestic price gap in decades.
Shipments of oil in rail tankers, though still small, may have already doubled from a year ago, industry estimates show. They could soon surge further as producers, railways and storage firms build up to a dozen crude-by-rail terminals, allowing oil from an oversupplied U.S. Midwest to flow to destinations where it’s priced much higher, including on the Gulf Coast.
The complete Reuters article appears on the Vancouver Sun website.