Berthold Rail Project - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Berthold Rail Project

Our oil series continues tonight taking a look at a project well over a million dollars that Berthold is in the process of that will expedite the transport of oil and fracking sand.
Jordan Pederson reports...

Berthold is in the process of two endeavors.. a rail project and an oil tank project.
West of town Enbridge is putting four circle tracks into place.
(Mayor Alan Lee, Berthold)"Two on the south side of the railroad track and two on the north side of highway two."
These tracks will allow rail cars to transport oil and fracking sand to and from the facilities.
Enbridge's oil tank project in Berthold will serve as a stopgap transport solution in the Bakken region and enhance North Dakota's crude oil system.
(Mayor Alan Lee, Berthold)  "Enbridge's goal is to get eight trains a week out of here."
The project will expand capacity into the Berthold terminal by 80,000 barrels a day.
Two of the circle tracks will serve as a double loop train facility allowing cars to be loaded with oil.
(Mayor Alan Lee, Berthold)  "What we are looking at right here is going to be the site where the cars will be loaded. There will be like 14 cars at a time going through, a continuous train. They will come in on the main line, get branched off here and get loaded.
The oil will be brought in by either truck or pipeline and stored at Enbridge's tank facility.
From there it could be re-routed back out to the pipeline or over to the rail car loading facility.
Right now there are two storage tanks with the possibility of three more being built.
The remaining two circle tracks serve in a frac sand operation.
Most of the frac sand comes in 2000 pound bags which are off loaded and then reloaded into train cars.
But now with the circle tracks... the process is more efficient.
(Mayor Alan Lee, Berthold) "This will bring in frac sand on rail cars in bulk."
The frac sand station has been operational for six weeks.
And with these new facilities... comes the opportunity for employment.
(Mayor Alan Lee, Berthold) "There is going to be a lot of employment there. There is going to be a lot of rail activity. It is going to be good for the economy. You know, Enbridge is going to be a good part of Berthold but that bad side is, you know, you have a lot of changes to adapt to."
In Berthold, Jordan Pederson, KX News.