Delta Air Lines to use ND Crude Oil to Fuel Jets - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Delta Air Lines to use ND Crude Oil to Fuel Jets

Oil from North Dakota's Bakken could become Delta's most frequent flier.

The airline recently purchased a refinery near Philadelphia to offset the cost of higher jet fuel.

And as Donnell Preskey reports, Delta says North Dakota Crude could be a major player in their keeping costs down.

The price of jet fuel has soared in recent years... As a way for Delta Airlines to manage it's largest expense, the airlines wants to replace imported oil with North Dakota crude oil.

Justin Kringstad, Director of the ND Pipeline Authority says, "the crude oil is very light, which means it makes large volumes of jet fuel, gasoline, diesel fuel. So again, for someone like Delta that is trying to optimize a refinery for jet fuel the Bakken crude works very well."

He says there are three refineries near Philadelphia currently receiving ND Crude oil by rail, including the refinery Delta owns. 

"It's gotten the attention of refining markets across the U.S.," says Kringstad.

North Dakota is now exporting as much as it is producing when it comes to oil.

Thanks to rail, oil can move from the Bakken to almost anywhere in the U.S.

Kringstad says, "we've saturated the traditional markets, and need to look outside the Midwest for refineries with a desire for light sweet barrel like ND's."

There are very few pipelines feed to the East Coast -- so prior to rail, refineries were forced to ship in oil from overseas.

Kringstad says, "the east coast traditionally got all their crude oil from water borne sources like the north sea or African sources. So for them to get a domestic source barrel of oil like from ND is very exciting and makes perfect economic sense on their end as well."

Kringstad says global oil prices are $20 a barrel more expensive than domestic crude.

North Dakota crude is cheaper even with the additional cost of shipping by rail.

A decision that makes good business sense and common sense to travelers as well.

"No doubt about it, we need to use as much of our energy as we can."

Delta Air Lines hopes to get 80 percent of its jet fuel domestically by using Bakken oil, a move that is expected to save them hundreds of millions of dollars.

Experts say it costs about $16 a barrel to transport crude oil by rail to East Coast refineries.

Other refineries on the East Coast are also building facilities to unload trains carrying North Dakota crude.