Moving North Dakota’s oil riches out of state on trains was supposed to be a stopgap solution until pipelines could be built. But even as crude gushes from the state’s Bakken Shale at a rate of nearly 1 million barrels a day, some pipeline companies are abandoning proposed projects, and it is becoming clear that rail transport won’t be a temporary phenomenon. In January, Koch Pipeline Company walked away from a project because of what it said was tepid interest by local oil producers. A year earlier Oneok Partners LP canceled plans for a $2 billion pipeline from North Dakota to Oklahoma for the same reason. Rail is almost always a more expensive way to transport crude than pipelines—as much as twice the price a barrel over similar distances. But in North Dakota’s case, rail’s greater flexibility to ferry oil to where it fetches the highest price trumped the […]