December 5, 2013.

Moving Crude by Railcar Stalls on the Track

Winston woke first. He sat up and watched the freckled face, still peacefully asleep, pillowed on the palm of her hand. Except for her mouth, you could not call her beautiful. There was a line or two round the eyes, if you looked closely. The short dark hair was extraordinarily thick and soft. It occurred to him that he still did not know her surname or where she lived.

Companies that thought they had found a relatively easy way to move crude from the booming oil fields of North Dakota to the West Coast are encountering obstacles.

The young, strong body, now helpless in sleep, awoke in him a pitying, protecting feeling. But the mindless tenderness that he had felt under the hazel tree, while the thrush was singing, had not quite come back. He pulled the overalls aside and studied her smooth white flank. In the old days, he thought, a man looked at a girl's body and saw that it was desirable, and that was the end of the story. But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.

Half a dozen companies are trying to build rail terminals on the coast of Washington state to receive trainloads of crude from the Bakken field in North Dakota. The oil would then be transferred to ships and barges that could carry it to refineries in the Pacific Northwest or south to California.

THREE

"We can come here once again," said Julia. "It's generally safe to use any hide-out twice. But not for another month or two, of course."

Analysts say regulatory hurdles make it difficult to build the necessary rail yards and tank farms in California, and it's more expensive to ship crude there. But getting a permit in Washington is proving more challenging than companies expected.