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Alaskan gas pipeline deal, why not a railroad deal?
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UP829 and others hit the nail on the head about petroleum transportation. Pipeline by far is the best means for moving large quantities of both liquid and gaseous products. If we tried to move all of the crude oil in this country by rail you would need a dedicated double track line between the field and the refinery. $$$ Remember that the oil (and gas) fields are spread out over wide areas and rail lines to all of them would be cost prohibitive. More $$$ To haul natural gas by rail you would either need to have high pressure vessels (oxygen bottles) which would be very costly. The other alternative is liquification of natural gas. Much more $$$$ Turning the gas into a liquid gives a huge volume advantage-600 standard cubic feet of natural gas equals one cubic foot of liquified natural gas. The boogie man is that this is done at approximately 260ºF below zero. This takes a large and expensive cryogenic plant then the tank cars must be a large thermos bottle. I think they will cost a little more than a conventional tank car. This is done today in ships that transport natural gas from the middle east to Europe, Japan, or the good old USA. Upon arrival the gas must be regassified to enter the domestic market. More $$$. A rule of thumb is that you need atleast 3 trillion cubic feet of available gas to justify a liquified natural gas setup. And thisa is considering putting it in a ship which has refigeration to keep the gas in the liquid state. How will you do this on the rail? All of the liqified natural gas receiving terminals in the US are removed from major metropolitan areas. With rail lines going through metro areas I can just hear the Washington DC city council screaming about this. A tank car of propane or hydrocloric acid is nothing compared to the LNG tank car blowing up. You might ask: Why worry about the temperature rising? Just keep the cork in the bottle and it will stay as a liquid. The second boogie man comes to town. As the temperature rises to 117ºF below zero you reach the critical temperature of methane. At the critical temperature the gas will turn to a liquid even if you put a millions pounds of pressure on it. It CANNOT be kept as a liquid unless someone rewrites the laws of thermodynamics and physics. <br /> <br />At its peak Prudhoe Bay produced in excess of 1 million barrels of crude per day which is 42 million gallons. If we assume that the average oil tank truck holds 21,000 gallons it would take one thousand trucks per day just to haul the oil. Assuming a 5 day round trip to get the oil to Valdez would require 5,000 tank trucks. Add in a few more for repairs and bad weather. Does anyone know the NYSE ticker symbol for the company makes tank trucks? I want to tell my broker to start buying. <br /> <br />Dck Watkins <br />Rail fan and professional whose real job is an oil and gas consulting professional engineer. <br />
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