By RUSSELL GOLD CONNECT
More crude oil is moving around the U.S. on trucks, barges and trains than at any point since the government began keeping records in 1981, as the energy industry devises ways to get around a pipeline-capacity shortage to take petroleum from new wells to refineries.
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Oil container cars sit at a train depot outside Williston, N.D.
The improvised approach is creating opportunities for transportation companies even as it strains roads and regulators. And it is a precursor to what may be a larger change: the construction of more than $40 billion in oil pipelines now under way or planned for the next few years, according to energy adviser Wood Mackenzie.
“We are in effect re-plumbing the country,” says Curt Anastasio, chief executive of NuStar Energy LP, NS +0.58% a pipeline company in San Antonio. Oil is “flowing in different directions and from new places.”
via Pipeline-Capacity Squeeze Reroutes Crude Oil – WSJ.com.
Nustar is a large holding of our. I also believe turmoil in the Middle East could add increasing pressure on capacity. Nustar should announce open season results on their pipeline capacity expansion in the Eagle Ford.