I suggested an idea of a better way of rail shipping bitumen, based on the premise that shipping raw bitumen by rail would save money by avoiding the following:
1) The cost of adding and removing diluent.
2) The cost of shipping the added weight of the diluent.
3) The cost of return shipping the diluent back to the origin for a new shipping cycle.
The logistics of this is based on what I have read and what Fred Frailey has said in his blog, and (I assume) in his recent article in Trains magazine.
Rail tank cars require less diluent than a pipeline, if the bitumen is heated in order to get it to flow out of a tank car. My suggestion involves the use of a special railcar and unloading process that does not require heating the raw bitumen to get it out of a tank car. Therefore, this process avoids the costs associated with diluent; and it speeds up the unloading process. I do not know if speeding up the unloading process saves money. Much of that process is the time and money spent to heat the bitumen, and even when unloaded more quickly, the bitumen still needs to heated for refinery processing.
However, according to posts by Greasemonkey, my idea for special cars is pointless because diluent needs to be in the load before and after the rail trip. So nothing can be saved by eliminating it from the rail trip. In fact he says removing it for the rail trip would actually add cost because it would have to be reintroduced after the rail trip.
I believe that this information from Greasemonkey is incorrect because it conflicts with many references that I have read, including the information from Fred Frailey. For example, here is a reference that supports my understanding of the advantage of rail shipping without diluent, and clearly refutes the information from Greasemonky:
From the linked article:
“Moving to pure bitumen by rail if pipelines are constrained
Pure bitumen rail movements today are not happening because the necessary infrastructure for shipping pure bitumen does not exist. Moving pure bitumen requires specialized equipment in Alberta, such as heated tanks connected by heated pipelines, modifications to rail on-loading facilities, heated rail cars, and units for removing diluent (diluent is added to the bitumen in the extraction and processing steps, this needs to be removed before shipping pure bitumen). In the USGC specialized rail off-loading facilities are also needed. The advantage today of moving dilbit, rather than pure bitumen, by rail is that it does not require as much unique rail infrastructure as pure bitumen. However, by moving dilbit by railcar producers are making part of the investment needed for supporting pure bitumen movements.
The rationale, so far, for not investing in the pure bitumen transport option is that most oil sands producers are assuming that sufficient pipeline capacity will become available in a few years. In order to receive a payback on building pure bitumen railing infrastructure, producers must anticipate its use over a longer time frame—perhaps five years. However, if producers anticipate that new pipeline capacity will not keep pace with oil sands growth, we expect that they will make investments in more efficient rail transport, including equipment for moving pure bitumen. These investments would narrow the gap between the economics of transporting oil sands by pipeline and by rail.”
http://unconventionalenergy.blogs.ihs.com/2013/09/10/oil-sands-bitumen-a-unique-case-for-rail-economics/