TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian National Railways (CN) is looking to take advantage of growing North American demand for shale gas, announcing on Wednesday it would start serving a new state-of-the art frac sand terminal north of Grande Prairie, Alberta, in November.
The new 8 ha facility was being built by Di-Corp, of Edmonton, and would have throughput of 550 000 t/y of frac sand and have three tracks capable of holding 44 rail cars for unloading.
"We are very pleased to be working with CN on this project in north-western Alberta to help accommodate existing and expected growth in frac sand demand in the western Canadian sedimentary basin,” Di-Corp VP for marketing Trevor Derksen said.
Frac sand is used by the oil and gas industries in the hydraulic fracturing process to hold shale fractures open and let natural gas and oil flow out.
CN is investing significantly in its frac sand franchise. CN announced last month it was accelerating work on the $33-million upgrading of a 120 km rail line between Wisconsin Rapids and Blair, in Wisconsin, to increase car-loading capacity and train velocity for growing frac sand supply chains.
In 2012, CN spent $35-million to restore a 65 km rail line between Ladysmith and Poskin, to serve the frac sand market.