1,000 acre rail yard added to deal with Eagle Ford traffic

Fuel Fix:

A 1,000-acre rail yard is in the works just south of San Antonio — part of a South Texas railroad boom that’s followed the surging oil and gas activity in the Eagle Ford Shale region.

Developers on Thursday said that the Mission Rail Park has broken ground and should open by mid-summer.

Plans call for the site, near Elmendorf, to be a center for oil field service companies working in the Eagle Ford, shipping anything from sand for hydraulic fracturing to crude oil.

The Houston-based Frac Resources and La Porte-based Frontier Logistics partnered on the project, with an estimated $12 million to $15 million investment in the first phase of the rail park.

Kyle Kinsel of Frac Resources said the company initially was looking for property for itself.

“It’s too much property for us so we got into the development business,” Kinsel said. “It’s an enormous size for a rail development.”

Frac Resources will likely carve out 50 acres for its own terminal to move 40,000 tons of sand a month. Frontier Logistics, which has expertise in warehousing and moving cargo, will manage the site’s operations.

Kinsel said the target customers include companies that need to move lumber, ethanol, corn syrup or sand — basically any commodity that can move by rail. It also will market to pipeline and storage companies that need to move or store crude oil or natural gas.

Initial construction will allow for the property to handle multiple 100-car unit trains.

Most of the project sits in Wilson County. About 100 acres is in Bexar County. The property has been under contract since last April, and it has taken developers about eight months to line up the needed agreements with Union Pacific.

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Rail has been a key infrastructure component in the development of the Eagle Ford formation.  It has also been important to moving oil to market until pipeline can be added.  It is one more example of how energy development adds to the economy in indirect ways.