CN Rail, Canada's biggest railroad, has said it expects to move more than 30,000 carloads of crude oil in 2012 to various North American destinations.
"We think next year there is a fair enough chance... we could do twice as much as we were able to do this year," Jean-Jacques Ruest said in an interview.
In 2011, CN shipped only 5,000 carloads.
"Currently we are tracking at 40,000 carloads annualized, and every quarter there is an improvement from the prior quarter," he said.
Ruest said the estimate for 2013 took into account "projects that we have on the plan right now" and assumed that "construction season allows us to get these things done with a reasonable winter".
CN, along with other North American railroads, have experienced an exponential increase in crude shipments in the past few years as production booms, pipelines approach full capacity and rails are able to give producers access to higher-priced Brent crude oil markets. (Reuters)
