North Dakota crude terminal launches unit train operations

Dakota Plains Holdings Inc. yesterday announced the Pioneer Rail Terminal in New Town, N.D., began loading and sending out unit trains last month.

Served by Canadian Pacific, the terminal also began receiving third-party transload volumes in January to supplement joint venture-marketed volumes. The facility targets crude-oil customers in the Bakken Shale and Three Forks area.

"More than 15,000 development wells are currently expected to be drilled within 25 miles of the Pioneer Rail Terminal," said Dakota Plains Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Craig McKenzie in a press release. "We are aggressively responding to the pace of development in the Bakken region by developing state-of-the-art facilities that can manage the outbound and inbound needs of our supplier and off-take customers."

The company plans to continue ramping up operations at the terminal and expects to achieve "significant growth" in 2014 and beyond, he said.

Dakota Plains also announced that construction on the UNIMIN Corp. joint venture frac sand terminal in New Town is on pace for completion in May. Interim operations began at the storage and transloading facility — which also will be served by CP — in late January. Full rail cars now are on site and direct transloading onto third-party trucks is expected to begin in the coming weeks, Dakota Plains officials said.