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Berkshire Hathaway's BNSF Railroad OKs $5 Billion Spending Plan
By Tim Brugger | More Articles
February 5, 2014 | Comments (0)
After capturing more than half of the rail industry's 2013 volume increase, BNSF railroad, a wholly owned unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A ) (NYSE: BRK-B ) , announced yesterday it has approved a $5 billion capital expenditure plan for 2014. This year's spending will be approximately $1 billion more than BNSF spent in 2013 to enhance systems and processes.
According to BNSF's statement, the $5 billion in expenditures will fund an estimated $2.3 billion to strengthen its "core network and related assets," $1.6 billion to acquire new trains and equipment, $900 million for terminal and intermodal expansion, and approximately $200 million to continue installing positive train control (PTC) systems. PTCs are a key National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) initiative utilizing integrated technology and communications systems to enhance railroad safety.
BNSF expects to continue its growth in 2014 due to increased volumes in the agricultural, automotive, intermodal, and industrial products (including crude oil and coal) industries. Some projects should help alleviate congestion near the booming Bakken oil field in North Dakota and Montana. Last week, the National Association of Railroad Passengers complained to officials that the growth in oil shipments was disrupting Amtrak passenger service.
Carl Ice, president and CEO of BNSF, said of 2014's capital expenditure plans: "BNSF's capital investments are an integral part of making sure our network is well prepared for the demand for freight rail service in the U.S. and helps ensure the continued integrity and reliability of our network."
Berkshire Hathaway acquired BNSF, known as Burlington Northern Santa Fe at the time, in late 2009 for $34 billion, the largest investment of Warren Buffett's storied investment career.
BNSF Railway operates on 32,500 route miles of track in 28 states and two Canadian provinces.
BNSF Railway operates on 32,500 route miles of track in 28 states and two Canadian provinces.
Bakken oil-train loadings up again on Monday
Posted by: Reuters in Bakken News, Oil March 4, 2014 0
(Reuters) – Oil-by-rail shipments via a dozen major loading terminals in the Bakken region in North Dakota rose again on Monday after running at unusually low rates last week following new U.S. testing and shipping regulations, Genscape data showed on Tuesday.
A total of 688,425 barrels of crude was loaded at 11 terminals on Monday, up from 665,000 on Sunday and more than double the average rate of the four days proceeding Sunday, according to an assessment by industry intelligence group Genscape, which uses cameras to count the number of tank cars loaded at major terminals.
In the two weeks prior to Tuesday’s emergency order imposing new oil testing rules, shipments had been running at about 550,000 barrels per day (bpd), on average. But in the four days following the order, shipments dropped to some 312,000 bpd. On Friday and Saturday, an average of 280,000 barrels was loaded.
“Over last week, Bakken rail loadings averaged 470,692 bpd, their lowest average level since the week ending Sept. 13 last year. This constitutes a 103,093 bpd week-on-week decline, a fall of just below 18 percent,” Genscape analysts said in their weekly PetroRail Report.
They said factors apart from regulation had also affected loading rates, including severe cold weather that has slowed traffic and caused congestion in the Midwest.
Oil traders were on high alert for any sign that tougher rules on shipping Bakken’s light crude by rail could slow supplies out of the booming region, where existing pipelines are unable to keep pace with rising production.
U.S. regulators denied a rumor on Friday that unannounced inspections across the region had forced terminals to shut down. The Genscape data showed all of the dozen terminals it monitors have loaded at least one cargo since Feb. 26.
Genscape’s report also showed that NuStar’s oil-by-rail offloading terminal in St. James, Louisiana, handled 132,000 bpd of crude last week, the highest since it began monitoring the facility, one of the largest on the Gulf Coast.
Mike said:It matters not if a few innocent people get killed.
What's important is that Warren makes a profit!! :lol:
Oldtimer said:Mike said:It matters not if a few innocent people get killed.
What's important is that Warren makes a profit!! :lol:
Yeah in the sake of providing the country oil, capitalism, and corporate profit taking I'm sure there will be a few folks killed... Accidents happen if its trucks or pipelines too...
![]()
But I bet this fellow got thousands more killed in the name of oil, capitalism and corporate profit taking ! And his killing was deliberate ....
The Facts on Halliburton By: Michael P. Tremoglie
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, October 08, 2004
To partisans of a liberal, radical, and Democratic Party background, Halliburton is synonymous with evil, the symbol of cloven-footed, corrupt capitalism.
According to the these activists, Halliburton is the treasonous corporation of which VP Cheney was formerly CEO -- treasonous because the company is reaping profits from the war in Iraq as our bravest young men are dying.
Both John Kerry and John Edwards have picked up on this. Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry recently said, "the only people George Bush's policies are working for are the people he chooses to help…They're working for drug companies. They're working for oil companies...and they're certainly working for Halliburton." Edwards likewise inserted this issue into this week's vice presidential debate.
It has been a reigning motif of the conspiracist Left that has slowly gained the mainstream acceptance of the man who could be the next president -- and the man who could be the frontrunner in the 2008 presidential race.
The Left has been on this theme for quite some time. According to an article by Carl Hiassen, in the April 25 edition of the Miami Herald, "Dick Cheney had gotten the war he wanted. One year later, it's costing us a staggering $4.7 billion a month, or about $157 million per day. A hefty chunk of that is being spent on support services provided in Iraq by Halliburton, the Texas company that Cheney ran before joining the Bush ticket in 2000. Cheney says he has severed his ties to Halliburton and had nothing to do with the lucrative no-bid contracts awarded to the firm. Not everyone is persuaded that the connection is merely coincidental."
All this rhetoric echoes the words of the revolutionary Marxist journal International Socialist Review (ISO), which has made reference to the "corporate invasion of Iraq by large U.S. corporations like Halliburton."[1]
Why do leftists demonize Halliburton? What proof exists of their claims of corruption? What exactly has Halliburton done to profit from American military casualties? Indeed, have they profited from military casualties? Is there a special relationship between the Bush administration and Halliburton so that the company receives contracts without observing the normal bidding process?
It is certainly true that during a two year period Halliburton’s revenue from Defense Department contracts doubled. However, that increase in revenue occurred from 1998 to 2000 - during the Clinton administration.
In 1998, Halliburton's total revenue was $14.5 billion, which included $284 million of Pentagon contracts. Two years later, Halliburton’s DoD contracts more than doubled.
Regarding the Iraq contracts, Halliburton was accused by Democrats of receiving special "no-bid" contracts because of Cheney’s influence. One advertisement by the Democrats charged, "Bush gave contracts to Halliburton instead of fighting corporate corruption."
FactCheck.org an organization which ascertains the validity of political campaign advertisements researched this accusation. According to FactCheck, "The Bush administration is doing a fair amount to fight corporate corruption, convicting or indicting executives of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Tyco International, Worldcom, Adelphia Communications Corporation, Credit Suisse First Boston, HealthSouth Corporation and others, including Martha Stewart. The Department of Justice says it has brought charges against 20 executives of Enron alone, and its Corporate Fraud Task Force says it has won convictions of more than 250 persons to date. Bush also signed the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in 2002, imposing stringent new accounting rules in the wake of the Arthur Andersen scandal."
When Factcheck.org checked the facts about allegations by Democrats that there was a scandal because of the "no-bid" contracts awarded to Halliburton they stated, "It is false to imply that Bush personally awarded a contract to Halliburton. The ‘no-bid contract’ in question is actually an extension of an earlier contract to support U.S. troops overseas that Halliburton won under open bidding. In fact, the notion that Halliburton benefited from any cronyism has been poo-poohed by a Harvard University professor, Steven Kelman, who was administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Clinton administration. ‘One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded...who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd,’ Kelman wrote in the Washington Post last November." (Emphasis added.)
The Center for Public Integrity another public interest group also investigated the purported scandal of the Halliburton "no-bid" contracts. They wrote:
In Iraq, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) has been awarded five contracts worth at least $10.8 billion, including more than $5.6 billion under the U.S. Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract, an omnibus contract that allows the Army to call on KBR for support in all of its field operations. When the Army needs a service performed, it issues a "task order," which lays out specific work requirements under the contract…From 1992 to 1997, KBR held the first LOGCAP contract awarded by the Army, but when it was time to renew the contract, the company lost in the competitive bidding process to DynCorp after the General Accounting Office reported in February 1997 that KBR had overrun its estimated costs in the Balkans by 32 percent (some of which was attributed to an increase in the Army's demands). KBR (obtained) the third LOGCAP contract in December 2001…n November 2002 the Army Corps of Engineers tasked KBR to develop a contingency plan for extinguishing oil well fires in Iraq…[O]n March 24, 2003, the Army Corps announced publicly that KBR had been awarded a contract to restore oil-infrastructure in Iraq, potentially worth $7 billion. The contract KBR received…would eventually include 10 distinct task orders. KBR did not come close to reaching the contract ceiling, billing just over $2.5 billion…The contract was awarded without submission for public bids or congressional notification. In their response to congressional inquiries, Army officials said they determined that extinguishing oil fires fell under the range of services provided under LOGCAP, meaning that KBR could deploy quickly and without additional security clearances.
Neither the Center for Public Integrity nor Factcheck.org determined anything sinister about Halliburton’s no-bid" contracts for the Iraq war. Two nonpartisan, nonaligned, public interest organizations have investigated the Halliburton allegations and found them to be specious allegations made for purely political purposes.
An L.A. Times op-ed of April 22 said, "Halliburton Received No-Bid Contracts During Clinton Administration For Work In Bosnia And Kosovo." An October 2003 article in the (Raleigh, NC) News & Observer quoted Bill Clinton's Undersecretary Of Commerce William Reinsch as saying "'Halliburton has a distinguished track record,' he said. 'They do business in some 120 countries. This is a group of people who know what they're doing in a difficult business. It's a particularly difficult business when people are shooting at you.'"
If Democrats want to investigate a scandal involving Iraq they should devote their efforts to the UN "Oil-for-Food" program instead of Halliburton. However, they will not because Saddam Hussein is not a candidate in this presidential election.
loomixguy said:Oldtimer said:Mike said:It matters not if a few innocent people get killed.
What's important is that Warren makes a profit!! :lol:
Yeah in the sake of providing the country oil, capitalism, and corporate profit taking I'm sure there will be a few folks killed... Accidents happen if its trucks or pipelines too...
![]()
But I bet this fellow got thousands more killed in the name of oil, capitalism and corporate profit taking ! And his killing was deliberate ....
Bullish!t! Your fellow libtards in Congress APPROVED any actions taken...unlike your Dear Leader who tramples the Constitution like it was an old program at the racetrack. I was also led to believe that Cheney divested himself of the Halliburton stock he owned prior to running as W's VP candidate in 2000.
Independent Libertarian my aching arse.
But I bet this fellow got thousands more killed in the name of oil, capitalism and corporate profit taking
Mike said:OT wrote:But I bet this fellow got thousands more killed in the name of oil, capitalism and corporate profit taking
There is something wrong with "Capitalism" and "profits" of corporations? :roll:
If you think so, you live in the wrong country!![]()
May I suggest China, Venezuala, or maybe North Korea?
knabe said:derailments creates jobs
Mike said:OT wrote:But I bet this fellow got thousands more killed in the name of oil, capitalism and corporate profit taking
There is something wrong with "Capitalism" and "profits" of corporations? :roll:
If you think so, you live in the wrong country!![]()
May I suggest China, Venezuala, or maybe North Korea?
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/kouri/060705The dark side of Warren Buffett: He donates $3 billion to pro-abortion groups
littlejoe said:Mike said:OT wrote:But I bet this fellow got thousands more killed in the name of oil, capitalism and corporate profit taking
There is something wrong with "Capitalism" and "profits" of corporations? :roll:
If you think so, you live in the wrong country!![]()
May I suggest China, Venezuala, or maybe North Korea?
Right on, Mike! Been a fan of Warren for years----originally, he went to wall street, that disgusted him, he felt an honest man could make a living in the market elsewhere. Still lives in the first house he bought when moving to Omaha.
Is especially bullish on energy lately---I beat him to that one--but----nothing quite like having a few BRK_A shares tucked away for rainy day, 'eh?