Rail hub near completion

• Railway

An employee of R and R Contracting, works on a rail loop at Bakken Oil Express on Thursday morning near Dickinson.

Talk about it

A 300-acre rail hub near Dickinson will begin operating at the end of the month, according to Wichita, Kan.-based Lario Logistics LLC, which owns the facility.

Bakken Oil Express LLC will receive crude oil from the Bakken and Three Forks formations via pipelines and trucks. The oil will then be loaded into unit trains for further transportation to out of state markets, said Gerald O’Shaughnessy, chairman of Lario Logistics and BOE.

“In October we’ll accept more oil and by the end of October the project will be completed and we’ll be able to accept as much as the facility capacity at that point, which is 100,000 barrels a day,” he said.

The facility is located west of Dickinson on 115th Street Southwest and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe mainline.

“If we have additional people that we’re serving, then those would be additional traffic on our tracks,” said Amy McBeth, BNSF spokesperson. “BNSF has invested in the region and throughout the state and across our network to be able to serve our customers and we’ll certainly be able to do that.”

Lario purchased about 300 acres owned by EDOG Logistics last year and has managed the accelerated development of the expanded facilities, O’Shaughnessy said.

The original plan was for the facility to have one 32,000-barrel tank but it will now have three tanks and be able to store 100,000 barrels of oil at a time, O’Shaughnessy said.

“A lot of activity is going on,” he said. “Three years ago when the project was inspired that wasn’t the case, but things have changed. What we’re really doing is addressing the growing market.”

The facility will help with truck traffic, said Stark County Commission Chairman Ken Zander.

“It will reduce the amount of truck traffic, because much of it will get there by pipeline,” he said.

The facility has two rail loops, each about 8,000 feet long, so two trains can be at the facility at the same time, he said.

“A unit train can be loaded in 12 hours,” O’Shaughnessy said.

The facility also has a truck center with six bays and room for expansion.

BOE has executed a long-term anchor shipper agreement with Eighty-Eight Oil LLC, Lario announced Thursday.

“Eighty-Eight congratulates Bakken Oil Express for their efforts in the concept, design and tenacity in getting to the finish line for this project and is excited about the opportunity to work with BNSF and the Bakken Oil Express Rail Hub”, Eighty-Eight Superintendent Jerry Herz said in a press release. “We are looking forward to moving additional volumes of North Dakota crude oil by rail that will provide access to alternate markets for our customers.”

Additional rail loops, tanks, and pipeline connections will likely be added to the facility as demand increases, O’Shaughnessy said.

Fifteen to 20 people will be employed at BOE and more will be hired as the facility expands, he added.

The BOE is the first multiple shipper unit train loading operation in North Dakota, according to Lario.

O’Shaughnessy said the location of the hub is ideal, since oil activity in the state seems to be moving south.

“The northern rail lines are full,” he added.

Zander said the facility will bring more tax revenue to the state.

“It’s a good thing for the state of North Dakota, because by having this transfer station in place, the oil companies will be able to get their product to the market quicker, more efficiently,” Zander said.

Tags: railroad, oil, news, rail