Bakken Report: NuStar to build second St. James rail facility

NuStar Energy LP plans to add a second railcar offloading unit train facility at its terminal in St. James, La., the company said July 27 during a second quarter earnings call.

Curt Anastasio, president and chief executive officer of the San Antonio midstream firm, said the expansion was due to customer demand, pointing to growing oil production from the Bakken petroleum system in North Dakota.

“Capacity for our second unit train facility will be a minimum of 70,000 barrels per day,” Chris Cho in NuStar’s corporate communication department told Petroleum News Bakken the same day.

Cho said the company expects the project to be completed “in the first or second quarter of 2013.” NuStar Energy is a publicly-traded limited partnership with 8,420 miles of pipeline; 89 terminal and storage facilities that store and distribute crude oil, refined products and specialty liquids; two asphalt refineries; and a fuels refinery with a combined throughput capacity of 118,500 barrels per day.

The partnership’s combined system has approximately 98 million barrels of storage capacity. The second largest independent liquids terminal operator in the nation, NuStar has operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Turkey.

—Kay Cashman