(April 11, 2014 at 3:11 am)Heywood Wrote:(April 11, 2014 at 3:01 am)Chuck Wrote: Yes, but how much?
Not a lot.....certainly not 130 billion meters a year that the Russians supply Europe.
However in 2008 the US railroads shipped less than 10,000 carloads of crude oil in a year. In 2013 it was 400,000 car loads. In 2014 in will be even more. I don't see why US rail couldn't ramp up LNG shipments just as quickly.
Even if the US rail system can move the containers, the existing shipping terminals can't safely handle them, existing container ships aren't set up safely store them, the distribution system at the receiving end aren't set up to receive them from tanks. The deadweight of the tanks themselves adds to the inefficiency.
It can't be done in 2-5 years. It you make the investment to do it after 5 years, you risk colossal loses if the Russians don't jack up the price and thus use their pipelines to massively undercut you in transportation cost.
