CALGARY, ALBERTA–(Marketwired – Aug. 14, 2013) – TORQ Transloading Inc. (“TORQ“) is pleased to announce its planned development of a large scale state-of-the-art unit train, crude-by-rail terminal in the Kerrobert, SK area (the “Kerrobert Rail Terminal“). TORQ is negotiating multiple pipeline connections to accommodate delivery of both light and heavy crudes to the Kerrobert Rail Terminal. The Kerrobert Rail Terminal is to be served by Canadian Pacific Railway.
The Kerrobert Rail Terminal is engineered to handle two, 120 car unit trains per day or up to 168,000 bpd and is expected to cost $100 million. The Kerrobert Rail Terminal is also being designed to handle truck delivered volumes. Truck delivered volumes will be delivered to the Kerrobert Rail Terminal storage tanks, which is expected to include up to 500,000 barrels of storage comprised of a mixture of both heated (for undiluted heavy crude) and non-heated. The Kerrobert Rail Terminal has also been designed to accept inbound, rail back-hauled condensate and is expected to commence operations in Q3 2014.
TORQ CEO Jarrett Zielinski said about the development, “In the location selection process for the Kerrobert Rail Terminal, we took the scale-at-hub approach. We feel that Kerrobert is strategic in that it allows maximum diversity and flexibility for crude-by-rail out of Western Canada. It is as far south and east geographically in Canada that allows us to not only access vast amounts of pipeline delivered crude oil but also it allows us to access significant quantities of heavy, undiluted crudes in the Lloydminster-Kerrobert corridor. Kerrobert, Saskatchewan, is geographically as close to the heavy crude’s natural destination markets as possible by rail, minimizing transportation costs relative to similar crude types to be shipped by rail originating further north and west in Alberta. Our estimation is that the Kerrobert Rail Terminal could offer transportation savings to the US Gulf Coast and East Coast upwards of $5.00 per barrel compared with shipping similar crudes by rail out of certain locations in Alberta.”
Zielinski continued, “We are extremely proud to be working with CP Rail again to provide the producer and refiner communities with what we feel will be the most economically advantaged crude-by-rail terminal in Canada with abundant access to heavy crudes seeking premium markets. This project adds upstream value to TORQ’s overall supply chain strategy of integrating upstream pipelines, storage and rail transportation with downstream rail offloading capacity and direct end user access via pipeline and water.”
TORQ is a privately held midstream oilfield service provider that currently operates six crude-by-rail transload terminals across Alberta and Saskatchewan. TORQ operates on behalf of Canadian Pacific Railway, at Tilley, AB and Lloydminster, SK and for Canadian National Railway, at Whitecourt, AB. As well, TORQ has operations in the Shaunavon, SK, Unity, SK and Bromhead, SK areas. TORQ’s affiliate, Goulet Trucking provides delivery of trucked-in volumes across the network of six crude-by-rail terminals.