Jobs Update

Initial jobless claims seasonally adjusted for the week ending May 30, 2026 came in at 225,000, versus the adjusted number of 212,000 people from the week prior, up 13,000 people week over week.

Continuing jobless claims came in at 1,777,000, versus the adjusted number of 1,785,000 people from the week prior, down 8,000 week-over-week.

Stocks closed lower on Friday of last week and lower week-over-week

The DOW closed lower on Friday of last week, down -695.15 points (-1.35%), closing out the week at 50,866.78, down -165.68 points week-over-week. The S&P 500 closed lower on Friday of last week, down -200.47 points (-2.64%), and closed out the week at 7,383.84, down -196.22 points week-over-week. The NASDAQ closed lower on Friday of last week, down -1121.53 points (-4.18%), and closed out the week at 25,709.43, down -1,263.19 points week-over-week.

In overnight trading, DOW futures traded higher and are expected to open at ______ this morning, up/down ______ points from Friday’s close.

Crude oil closed lower on Friday of last week and higher week-over-week

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed down -$2.50 per barrel (-2.7%), to close at $90.54 on Friday of last week, but up $2.85 week-over-week. Brent crude closed down -$1.94 per barrel (-2%), to close at $93.09, but up $1.04 week-over-week. 

One Exchange WCS (Western Canadian Select) for July settled on Friday of last week at US$12.10 below the WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average). The implied value was US$76.88 per barrel.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 8 million barrels week-over-week. At 433.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are 3% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 3.4 million barrels week-over-week and are 5% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories increased by 1.5 million barrels week-over-week and are 3% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane/propylene inventories increased by 2.1 million barrels week-over-week and are 39% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane prices closed at 79.8 cents per gallon on Friday of last week, down 3.1 cents per gallon week-over-week, but up 5.6 cents year-over-year.

Overall, total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 2.6 million barrels week-over-week during the week ending May 29, 2026.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.4 million barrels per day during the week ending May 29, 2026, an increase of 1.2 million barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 5.9 million barrels per day, 4.5% less than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) averaged 780,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 121,000 barrels per day during the week ending May 29, 2026.

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 5.874 million barrels per day during the week ending May 29, 2026, an increase of 1.434 million barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil exports averaged 5.353 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.9 million barrels per day during the week ending May 29, 2026, which was 90,000 barrels per day less week-over-week.

WTI is poised to open at $90.75, up $3.39 per barrel from Friday’s close.

North American Rail Traffic

Week Ending June 3, 2026:

Total North American weekly rail volumes were up (+6.77%) in week 23, compared with the same week last year. Total Carloads for the week ending June 3, 2026 were 327,635, up (+4.02%) compared with the same week in 2025, while weekly Intermodal volume was 322,419, up (+9.72%) year over year. 10 of the AAR’s 11 major traffic categories posted year-over-year increases. The largest decrease came from Coal (-0.81%). The largest increase was Grain (+27.30%).

In the East, CSX’s total volumes were up (+5.57%), with the largest decrease coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (-7.43%), while the largest increase came from Other (+19.78%). NS’s total volumes were up (+6.69%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+24.70%), while the largest decrease came from Grain (-12.97%).

In the West, BNSF’s total volumes were up (+13.54%), with the largest increase coming from Coal (+61.71%), while the largest decrease came from Other (-12.26%). UP’s total volumes were up (+1.79%), with the largest increase coming from Metallic Ores and Metals (+26.39%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-19.05%).

In Canada, CN’s total volumes were up (+1.72%), with the largest increase coming from Coal (+61.71%), while the largest decrease came from Metallic Ores and Metals (-13.28%). CPKCS’s total volumes were up (+12.65%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+39.98%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-11.85%).

Source Data: AAR – PFL Analytics

North American Rig Count Summary

North American rig count was up by +8 rigs week-over-week. The US rig count was up by +1 rig week-over-week, and up by +4 rigs year-over-year. The US currently has 563 active rigs. Canada’s rig count was up by +7 rigs week-over-week and up by +55 rigs year-over-year. Canada currently has 169 active rigs. Overall, year-over-year we are up by +59 rigs collectively.

International rig count was down by -3 rigs month-over-month and down by -25 rigs year-over-year. Internationally there are 1046 active rigs.

We are watching a few things out there for you:

We Are Watching Petroleum Carloads

The four-week rolling average of petroleum carloads carried on the six largest North American railroads rose to 29,665 from 29,494 which was an increase of +171 rail cars week-over-week. Canadian volumes were mixed. CN’s shipments were lower by -3.0% week-over-week, CPKC’s volumes were higher by +13.0% week-over-week. U.S. shipments were also mixed. The UP had the largest percentage decrease and was down by -12.0%. The BNSF had the largest percentage increase and was up by +4.0% week-over-week.

We Continue to Watch Our Strategic Petroleum Reserves 

The ongoing emergency drawdown of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) remains a major component of global efforts to offset crude oil supply disruptions stemming from the conflict involving Iran and the continued restrictions on oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Since March, the Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded exchanges covering more than 80 million barrels of crude oil, with additional releases expected as part of a broader international response coordinated through the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The United States committed to making up to 172 million barrels available from the SPR under the IEA’s collective plan to inject roughly 400 million barrels into global energy markets. Officials have argued that the releases are necessary to help stabilize crude supplies and limit further increases in fuel prices as refiners compete for replacement barrels amid ongoing transportation disruptions.

As releases have accelerated, inventories in the SPR have declined to 357.112 million barrels, down sharply from levels above 450 million barrels earlier this year and reaching their lowest level since January 2024. Recent weekly withdrawals have ranked among the largest on record, highlighting the scale of the government’s intervention in oil markets. On average, since the war started with Iran, the United States has withdrawn approximately 1.02 million barrels per day from the SPR through the week ending May 29, 2026.

Global petroleum inventories have also tightened considerably. The IEA has reported substantial draws in commercial crude and refined-product stockpiles across major consuming nations, underscoring the strain that the conflict has placed on world energy markets. Agency officials have indicated that further coordinated actions remain possible should supply disruptions persist or intensify.

The Administration continues to emphasize that the current program consists primarily of exchange agreements, rather than outright sales. Under these arrangements, companies receiving crude oil today are required to return the borrowed barrels in the future along with additional volumes as a premium. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has stated that the objective is to eventually restore the SPR to levels above those that existed prior to the current emergency releases.

Meanwhile, energy prices remain elevated compared with pre-conflict levels, keeping fuel costs a focus for consumers, businesses, and policymakers alike. Market participants continue to monitor developments in the Middle East, future IEA actions, and the pace of SPR releases as key factors influencing oil prices through the remainder of the year.

We Are Watching Trans Mountain Pipeline

The Canada Energy Regulator on Thursday of last week approved Trans Mountain’s drag reducing agent (“DRA”) project, clearing the path for a roughly 10% throughput increase, or approximately 90,000 barrels per day(“b/d”), on top of the existing 890,000 b/d capacity of the system. Construction starts in August, with the additional barrels expected to flow by January 2027. Trans Mountain has also flagged a second, larger expansion of 210,000 b/d for 2029 or 2030, which would push total system capacity above 1.19 million b/d. The DRA approval costs about C$9 million and requires no new pump stations, just 16 skid-mounted units at 12 existing locations.

Trans Mountain Pipeline

Source: Government of Canada

The Trans Mountain system is now officially full. Trans Mountain apportioned 0.2% of June nominations across both lines, the first time the system has been apportioned since the expansion came on line in May 2024.  On top of Trans Mountain being full, Enbridge restricted 19% of heavy crude nominations on it’s Mainline for the same month. Both major egress lines out of Alberta are at the wall at the same time, and the DRA project does not deliver new barrels for another six months.

The export data tells the same story. Canadian oil exports hit an all-time monthly record of 4.57 million b/d in March, with exports to non-U.S. destinations at a record 699,000 b/d, nearly double a year ago. The non-U.S. share has grown to 15%, or one in six barrels, up from 9% a year earlier. U.S. imports of heavy Canadian crude hit a quarterly record of 3.18 million b/d in the first quarter, the highest on record.

Liberal Prime Minister Carney has vowed to double non-U.S. exports within ten years and to deliver the fastest-growing economy in the G7. In our opinion, the export data is moving in the right direction in spite of his government, not because of it. Statistics Canada reported last week that the Canadian economy tipped into a technical recession in the first quarter, contracting 0.1% at an annual pace after a 1% contraction in the fourth quarter. Conservative Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre noted that Canada is the only G7 country in recession.

PFL has been watching the Alberta egress story for years and will keep watching. Until DRA barrels are flowing and the next round of capacity is sanctioned, the pipeline system is going to keep bumping into a ceiling, and that ceiling is where the crude by rail conversation lives.

We Are Watching Alberta Wildfires

Wildfires broke out last weekend in the Lac la Biche region of northeast Alberta. Six out of control fires are burning within 20 kilometers of major oil sands sites including Cenovus’s Christina Lake, Canadian Natural’s Jackfish and Kirby North, and ConocoPhillips’ Surmont, sites that together produce about half a million barrels per day. The community of Conklin was placed on evacuation alert over the weekend before being lifted as rains slowed the spread.

Alberta’s fire season runs March through October and is just getting underway. Last year’s Caribou Lake event forced Cenovus to shut in 238,000 b/d at Christina Lake for nearly two weeks and ultimately cost the company about two million barrels of production. Five of Alberta’s eight currently active wildfires are concentrated in the Lac la Biche zone, where most of the in-situ oil sands well sites operate.

Add this to the planned Suncor Firebag and Imperial Kearl turnarounds that take roughly half a million barrels per day of bitumen offline, and the heavy sour supply picture is meaningfully tighter than it was thirty days ago. Sustained shut-ins this summer would tighten Canadian heavy differentials and solve, at least for the short term pipeline  apportioned problems. PFL will keep watching as the fire season progresses and report to our readers.  Stay tuned to PFL for further updates.

We Are Watching RINs

RIN prices have roughly doubled in six months and continue to grind higher. D6 ethanol RINs closed last week at $2.33 and ½ of a cent per RIN, and D4 biomass-based diesel RINs closed at $2.39 per RIN, up roughly $1.33 for each vintage  since December of 2025. Both are now sitting above the 2022 cycle highs of $1.91 for D4 and $1.68 for D6, with no obvious technical resistance.

The catalyst is structural. On March 27 the EPA finalized the Set 2 Rule at the highest Renewable Fuel Standard volume requirements in program history, above the original June 2025 proposal, with the foreign-feedstock penalty deferred to 2028 or later. Higher mandates pull more RINs into the compliance bucket. The 45Z Clean Fuel Production Tax Credit that replaced the Blenders Tax Credit in January 2025 rewards only domestic production, and continued SAF and renewable diesel exports to Europe pull supply out of the U.S. compliance pool. A bullish triangle.

Refiners are responding to the math. Valero’s joint-venture Diamond Green Diesel reported first quarter operating income of $139 million, reversing a $141 million loss in the year-ago quarter, and expects to sell about 84,000 b/d of renewable fuels in the second quarter, the highest in more than two years. Marathon’s Martinez Renewables facility is targeting above 90% utilization in the second quarter after completing a turnaround, and the renewable diesel unit swung to $38 million of adjusted EBITDA from a $42 million loss a year ago.

For tank car economics this is unambiguously positive. Higher RIN values widen blender margins, which pulls more ethanol unit trains, more biodiesel and renewable diesel manifest moves, and more SAF railed to coastal export terminals. The mandate increase, the import-restricting structure of 45Z, and the export pull are all moving the same direction, and unlike the geopolitical stories elsewhere in this report, this one does not turn on a peace deal.

PFL’s RIN Recap covers this market in detail every week, make sure you are getting our emails. PFL works with shippers involved in feedstocks (multiple transloading locations) ethanol, biodiesel, and renewable diesel tank car requirements and is well positioned to help as the renewable fuel volumes increase through the back half of the year.  We also broker compliant approved RINS and LCFS credits. 

We Are Watching Coal

President Trump on Thursday of last week committed nearly $700 million in federal support to the U.S. coal industry, invoking the Defense Production Act to keep 13 existing coal-fired plants running, fund construction of new plants in Alaska and West Virginia, and finally move the long-delayed West Gateway export terminal at the Port of Oakland forward. For freight rail, every line item in this package is a positive for coal cars.

Here is the breakdown. $425 million goes to the 13 existing plants. $185 million funds the new builds, including the first new coal plants in the United States since 2013 and the restart of a shuttered plant in Maryland. $75 million goes to West Gateway, which is designed to ship up to 12 million tons of coal per year to overseas buyers.

Twelve million tons of coal a year out of Oakland means twelve million tons moving by unit train to get there, almost all of it sourced from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the largest coal region in the country. That is incremental loaded volume on BNSF and Union Pacific corridors that serve the basin today. The 13 existing plants getting funded all take coal by unit train, and federal money that extends their operating lives extends those train cycles.

The White House put job creation at 14,000 across mining, construction, rail and maritime. The Oakland terminal still has a permitting process to work through and the new plants will take years to build, but the funding is committed and the direction is clear. PFL is active in Coal in many ways including storage and repair and we will keep watching as the construction timelines firm up.

We Continue to Watch the CPKC Strike

We flagged the strike notice in last week’s report. At 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Sunday May 31, approximately 300 CPKC signals and communications workers walked off the job. No deal was reached. CPKC activated contingency plans immediately and reports that safe and efficient service is continuing across Canada. U.S. operations are not affected.

CPKC’s Senior General Chairman Jason Sommer of IBEW System Council No. 11 said the company had not meaningfully addressed recruitment, retention, or the scheduling demands that are driving experienced signal workers out of the department entirely. CPKC counters that its offer is consistent with agreements every other Canadian union on its network has accepted, and that the IBEW position is an outlier. The railroad is publicly pushing for binding arbitration.

Signals work is specialized. Qualified replacement staff can cover the basics, but the longer this runs, the greater the risk of degraded response times on maintenance, inspections, and incident response across a transcontinental network. Unlike a strike with a defined back-to-work order or arbitration deadline, this one has no end date on the horizon. We will keep watching as the arbitration question develops.

We Continue to Watch the Union Pacific

President Trump floated the idea of a 15% federal stake in a railroad in a Fortune interview last week, without naming the company. Union Pacific chief executive Jim Vena told CNBC on Thursday of last week that he has not had direct conversations with Trump about a federal partnership, and that UP can afford the Norfolk Southern deal on its own. “We do not need anybody’s help to do this,” Vena said.

Vena was careful with the language though. He called it “comforting that the President of the United States looked at what we are doing and says, ‘Son of a gun, this is a good business move … and I’d like to invest.’” Translation, UP does not want the federal money but is not in a position to publicly slam the door on the idea while a contested merger is in front of the Surface Transportation Board.

Speaking of the Board, Shipper groups including the National Industrial Transportation League and the Private Railcar Food and Beverage Association welcomed the STB’s May 28 decision to hold the merger application in abeyance and require UP and NS to demonstrate that the deal will enhance, rather than merely preserve, competition. The 2001 rules being tested here have never been applied to a Class I merger before. The federal-equity wrinkle is on top of all of that.

We have been saying this for months. The combination of an untested regulatory standard, a hostile shipper coalition, a competing BNSF-CSX interline alternative, and now a White House that wants a piece of the action, means this deal has more variables in front of it than it had when it was announced. PFL is watching this one closely.

We are Watching Key Economic Indicators

U.S. Unemployment 

On June 5, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that a preliminary 172,000 net new jobs were created in May 2026, exceeding expectations and marking the third consecutive month of solid job growth. The BLS also revised employment figures for the prior two months upward, adding a combined 93,000 jobs to March and April totals. March was revised up to 214,000 new jobs, while April was revised up to 179,000.

According to the BLS, total nonfarm payroll employment has increased by approximately 410,000 jobs over the last three months (March through May 2026). The official unemployment rate remained 4.3% in May, unchanged from April and consistent with the relatively stable labor market conditions seen throughout much of 2026.

Purchasing Managers Index (PMI)

The Institute for Supply Management releases two PMI reports—one covering manufacturing and the other covering services. These reports are based on surveys of supply managers across the country and track changes in business activity. A reading above 50% on the index indicates expansion, while a reading below 50% signifies contraction, with a faster pace of change the farther the reading is from 50.

The Manufacturing PMI registered 54.0% in May 2026, up from 52.7% in April and marking the fifth consecutive month of expansion and the strongest reading since May 2022. Growth was driven by continued increases in production and new orders, with the New Orders Index rising to 56.8% from 54.1% in April. Despite stronger demand, the employment component remained in contraction territory, indicating manufacturers continue to be cautious about hiring.

The Services PMI registered 54.5% in May 2026, up from 53.6% in April, reflecting the sector’s 23rd consecutive month of expansion. Business activity and new orders both strengthened during the month, with the New Orders Index increasing to 57.3% from 53.5% in April. However, the employment index fell to 47.9%, signaling continued weakness in service-sector hiring despite solid overall business activity.

Lease Bids

• 100, 21.9K 117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in the Midwest. For use in CO2 service. Period: 6 months.
• 30-50, 30K 117J Tanks located off of NS or CSX in the Northeast. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year.
• 20-50, 4000-5000 Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in Houston. For use in Urea, Potash, and  Ammonium Sulfate service. Period: 6-12 Months.
• 200, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of CSX or NS in Ohio. For use in Propylene service. Period: 18 Months.
• 30-50, 25.5K DOT 111 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in various locations. For use in Asphalt service. Period: 1-3 Years.
• 40, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP in Eunice, LA. For use in Propane service. Period: 1 Year.
• 40, 29K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in the Midwest. For use in Veg Oil service. Period: 5 Year.
• 70, 30K DOT 117 Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Ohio. For use in Diesel service. Period: 3 months.
• 20, DOT 117J Tanks located off of NS, CSX, CN, or CPKC in various locations. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year. Need gauge rods.
• 300, 5200CF Covered Hoppers located off of CP or CM in Canada. For use in Petcoke service. Period: 3 Year.
• 10, 30K 117J Tanks located off of BNSF in Canada. For use in Propane or Butane service. Period: 3 Year.
• 20, 28K or larger 117J Tanks located off of BNSF or UP in California. For use in Crude service. Period: 6 months.
• 75, 30K 117 Tanks located off of NS in Ohio. For use in Condensate service. Period: 6-12 Months. Mag Rods Not Needed.

Sales Bids

• 28, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in Texas. For use in Cement service. Cement Gates needed.
• 20, 17K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in corn syrup service.
• 120, Various Open-Top Aluminum Rotary Gondolas located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in Sulphur service. Built 2004 or later.
• 30, 29K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in Chicago. For use in Veg Oil service.

Lease Offers

• 21, 6351 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 29, 6500 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 50, 20K DOT117J Tanks located off of all class 1s in Moving. Last used in styrene.
• 29, 25.5K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in Texas. Cars are currently clean.
• 200, 340W DOT 112J Tanks located off of all class 1s in Multiple Locations. Last used in propane and butane. Cars are currently clean.
• 15, 6200CF Covered Hoppers located off of all class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 30, 6500CF Covered Hoppers located off of all class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 6, 21K Stainless Steel Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in surfactant. Cars are currently clean.
• 100, 28.4K DOT 117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in Beaumont, TX. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in the South. Last used in ethanol.
• 30, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable jet fuel.
• 80, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable diesel.
• 10, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable naphtha.
• 10, 29K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gasoline additive. Coiled and Insulated.
• 39, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Iowa. Last used in diesel.
• 99, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in diesel.
• 1, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in naphtha.
• 2, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in giesel.
• 1, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gas blend stock.
• 3, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gasoline.
• 36, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of CPKC in Texas. Last used in diesel.
• 6, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of CPKC in Texas. Last used in naphtha.

Sales Offers

• 81, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in TX. Last used in Multiple Services. Requal Due in 2025.
• 35, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in the Midwest. Last used in Sand.
• 25, 30K 117J Tanks located off of CSX in Jackson, TN. Last used in Fuels. Newly Requalified.

Call PFL today to discuss your needs and our availability and market reach. Whether you are looking to lease cars, lease out cars, buy cars, or sell cars call PFL today at 239-390-2885

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Jobs Update

Initial jobless claims seasonally adjusted for the week ending May 23, 2026 came in at 215,000, versus the adjusted number of 210,000 people from the week prior, up 5,000 people week over week.

Continuing jobless claims came in at 1,786,000, versus the adjusted number of 1,771,000 people from the week prior, up 15,000 week-over-week.

Stocks closed higher on Friday of last week and higher week-over-week

The DOW closed higher on Friday of last week, up 363.49 points (0.72%), closing out the week at 51,032.46, up 452.51 points week-over-week. The S&P 500 closed higher on Friday of last week, up 16.43 points (0.22%), and closed out the week at 7,580.06, up 106.62 points week-over-week. The NASDAQ closed higher on Friday of last week, up 55.15 points (0.20%), and closed out the week at 26,972.62, up 628.65 points week-over-week.

In overnight trading, DOW futures traded higher and are expected to open at 51,262 this morning, up 185 points from Friday’s close.

Crude oil closed lower on Friday of last week and lower week-over-week

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed down -1.54 per barrel (-1.7%), to close at $87.69 on Friday of last week, and down $8.91 week-over-week. Brent crude closed down -1.66 per barrel (-1.8%), to close at $92.05, and down $11.49 week-over-week.

One Exchange WCS (Western Canadian Select) for July settled on Friday of last week at US$13.40 below the WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average). The implied value was US$74.29 per barrel.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 3.3 million barrels week-over-week. At 441.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are 2% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 2.6 million barrels week-over-week and are 6% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 2.1 million barrels week-over-week and are 11% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 400,000 barrels week-over-week and are 46% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane prices closed at 82.9 cents per gallon on Friday of last week, down 1.4 cents per gallon week-over-week, but up 6.4 cents year-over-year.

Overall, total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 8.3 million barrels week-over-week during the week ending May 22, 2026.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.2 million barrels per day during the week ending May 22, 2026, a decrease of 804,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 5.7 million barrels per day, 7.1% less than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) averaged 555,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 127,000 barrels per day during the week ending May 22, 2026.

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 4.44 million barrels per day during the week ending May 22, 2026, a decrease of 1.164 million barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil exports averaged 5.072 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 17 million barrels per day during the week ending May 22, 2026, which was 652,000 barrels per day more week-over-week.

WTI is poised to open at $90.75, up $3.39 per barrel from Friday’s close.

North American Rail Traffic

Week Ending May 27, 2026:

Total North American weekly rail volumes were up (+7.00%) in week 22, compared with the same week last year. Total Carloads for the week ending May 27, 2026 were 334,410, up (+3.14%) compared with the same week in 2025, while weekly Intermodal volume was 353,704, up (+10.93%) year over year. 10 of the AAR’s 11 major traffic categories posted year-over-year increases. The largest decrease came from Coal (-0.50%). The largest increase was Grain (+16.16%).

In the East, CSX’s total volumes were up (+7.36%), with the largest decrease coming from Grain (-16.52%), while the largest increase came from Other (+13.86%). NS’s total volumes were up (+4.11%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+14.87%), while the largest decrease came from Other (-9.16%).

In the West, BNSF’s total volumes were up (+15.59%), with the largest increase coming from Coal (+51.99%), while the largest decrease came from Chemicals (-6.35%). UP’s total volumes were up (+4.33%), with the largest increase coming from Metallic Ores and Metals (+17.94%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-14.22%).

In Canada, CN’s total volumes were up (+2.18%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+53.16%), while the largest decrease came from Metallic Ores and Metals (-11.24%). CPKCS’s total volumes were down (-3.58%), with the largest increase coming from Nonmetallic Minerals (+38.68%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-43.75%).

Source Data: AAR – PFL Analytics

North American Rig Count Summary

North American rig count was up by +28 rigs week-over-week. The US rig count was up by +4 rigs week-over-week, but down by -1 rig year-over-year. The US currently has 562 active rigs. Canada’s rig count was up by +24 rigs week-over-week and up by +50 rigs year-over-year. Canada currently has 162 active rigs. Overall, year-over-year we are up by +49 rigs collectively.

We are watching a few things out there for you:

We Are Watching Petroleum Carloads

The four-week rolling average of petroleum carloads carried on the six largest North American railroads rose to 29,494 from 29,257 which was an increase of +237 rail cars week-over-week. Canadian volumes were mixed. CKPC’s shipments were lower by -7.0% week-over-week, CN’s volumes were higher by +8.0% week-over-week. U.S. shipments were mostly lower. The CSX had the largest percentage decrease and was down by -8.0%. The NS was the sole gainer and was up by +5.0% week-over-week.

We Continue to Watch Our Strategic Petroleum Reserves 

The ongoing emergency drawdown of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) remains a major component of global efforts to offset crude oil supply disruptions stemming from the conflict involving Iran and the continued restrictions on oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Since March, the Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded exchanges covering more than 80 million barrels of crude oil, with additional releases expected as part of a broader international response coordinated through the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The United States committed to making up to 172 million barrels available from the SPR under the IEA’s collective plan to inject roughly 400 million barrels into global energy markets. Officials have argued that the releases are necessary to help stabilize crude supplies and limit further increases in fuel prices as refiners compete for replacement barrels amid ongoing transportation disruptions.

As releases have accelerated, inventories in the SPR have declined to 365.112 million barrels, down sharply from levels above 450 million barrels earlier this year and approaching the lowest levels since mid-2024. Recent weekly withdrawals have ranked among the largest on record, highlighting the scale of the government’s intervention in oil markets. On average, since the war started with Iran, we have pulled 964,226 barrels per day from storage for the week ending May 22, 2026.

Global petroleum inventories have also tightened considerably. The IEA has reported substantial draws in commercial crude and refined-product stockpiles across major consuming nations, underscoring the strain that the conflict has placed on world energy markets. Agency officials have indicated that further coordinated actions remain possible should supply disruptions persist or intensify.

The Administration continues to emphasize that the current program consists primarily of exchange agreements, rather than outright sales. Under these arrangements, companies receiving crude oil today are required to return the borrowed barrels in the future along with additional volumes as a premium. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has stated that the objective is to eventually restore the SPR to levels above those that existed prior to the current emergency releases.

Meanwhile, energy prices remain elevated compared with pre-conflict levels, keeping fuel costs a focus for consumers, businesses, and policymakers alike. Market participants continue to monitor developments in the Middle East, future IEA actions, and the pace of SPR releases as key factors influencing oil prices through the remainder of the year.

We are Watching Canadian Crude Oil Exports by Rail

The Canadian Energy regulator reported on May 20, 2026, that 74,248 barrels were exported during the month of March 2026, down from 79,057 barrels in February of 2026, a decrease of -4,809  barrels per day month-over-month and its lowest level since July of 2025 where only 70,031 barrels per day were exported.  It will be interesting to see how April volumes come in.

Crude by rail will always be necessary out of Canada for stranded oil not connected by pipelines. Raw bitumen, which is shipped as a non-haz product and is not able to flow in pipelines, is competitive with pipeline tolls and is a growing market to keep an eye on, particularly in light of Strathcona and Gibson announcing new projects. Other factors would be existing long-term contractual commitments and basis – we really need to see basis WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average) blowout to -18 per barrel for sustained periods of time to make economic sense. Current rail rates from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast have averaged $15.36 per barrel, making rail competitive whenever WCS-WTI spreads exceed $18 per barrel, including quality adjustments. 

We Continue to Watch Hormuz

The Iran ceasefire framework moved closer to a durable extension last week, and crude markets responded with the kind of move we have been waiting on for three months. Brent closed at $92.56 on Friday, May 29th and WTI at $87.18, leaving Brent down roughly 19% in May, its worst month since the COVID collapse. WTI Houston traded at $88.47 to close the week, off $12.27. LLS gave up $12.39. Bakken at Clearbrook fell $9.54 to $87.03 and WCS at Hardisty was down $6.29 at $71.43.

The product complex moved with it. USGC gasoline lost just over 30 cents on the week, ULSD lost just under 30 cents, and New York Harbor jet fuel hit its lowest level since the start of the Iran war last Wednesday. Diesel inventories told a different story, falling to 91.2 million barrels for the week ended May 22, the lowest level since November 2014. That is what a war does to inventory levels when refined product exports stay elevated. May diesel exports averaged 1.34 million barrels per day per Kpler, the highest in at least nine years.

The peace framework remains technically unsigned. U.S. and Iranian forces exchanged strikes last Thursday before markets settled lower on hopes the ceasefire extension would hold. Amos Hochstein told CNBC the same morning that the Iranians will control the Strait of Hormuz for the foreseeable future no matter what the deal says, and that everyone in the region understands this. That is the operating assumption now. Tankers are starting to transit again under Iranian protection, but volume is well below pre-war levels and the security premium will linger.

U.S. retail gasoline averaged $4.475 per gallon in the week ended May 25, still up $1.538 from the week before the war began. PFL is not calling the bottom on this move, and neither should anyone else. Hormuz has resolved itself partially, twice, in the past ten weeks, and re-escalated each time. The OPEC+ ministerial meeting next Sunday is the next catalyst.

We Continue to Watch the Enbridge

We flagged the June Mainline number last week. The new wrinkle is that the Trans Mountain system is expected to be apportioned for the first time since the Expansion came online in May 2024. Both major WCSB egress pipelines are now effectively full at the same time, a setup we have not seen in two years. Enbridge rejected 19% of heavy crude nominations on the 3.1 million barrel per day Mainline for June flow, the highest level since before TMX started up. TMX June loadings traded at a $6.40 discount to June CMA Nymex on an fob Vancouver basis for prompt 21-30 June cargoes, and May loadings averaged 491,000 barrels perday, per Kpler, a six-month high. Asia-Pacific demand for heavy Canadian barrels has been the swing factor. The Iran war disrupted Mideast Gulf medium and heavy sour supply and Vancouver became the reliable alternative in the Pacific basin.

On the rail economics, the picture is improving but not there yet. WCS at Houston traded around a $7.10 premium to Hardisty during the May trade cycle, well short of the $15 to $20 spread that typically makes uncommitted crude by rail movements viable. The Alberta to USGC unit train rate for June is roughly $17 per barrel. The bitumen is there. Q1 thermal production hit a record 1.74 million barrels per day. The egress is the bottleneck.

This could be the beginning of another crude by rail cycle if pipeline constraints persist and the basis blows out further and crude price remains elevated. Time will tell, and it is geopolitically dependent. If Hormuz reopens and Pacific basin demand for Vancouver barrels cools, TMX apportionment would be the first thing to ease. Stay tuned to PFL for further details.

We Continue to Watch Left Wing Carney

Carney spent last week pitching U.S. investors at the Economic Club of New York and tightening his domestic carbon framework. His position on Alberta is now formalized in four words: no pathways, no pipeline. Alberta is on the hook to submit its West Coast pipeline application to the Major Projects Office by July 1, and Ottawa has committed to designating it a project of national interest by October 1st.

The May 15th Implementation Agreement detailed the carbon side of the trade. Alberta’s industrial carbon price will sit at $100 per tonne from 2027 through 2029, then step up to $140 by 2040, with a floor of $110 per tonne by 2040. Both the Oil Sands Alliance and CAPP have publicly stated the levy is uniquely Canadian and places uncompetitive costs on the industry. That is the producer view of a deal Ottawa is calling a compromise.

The trilateral with the Oil Sands Alliance on Pathways remains unresolved, despite an April 1 deadline that came and went. Without Pathways, by Carney’s own framing, there is no pipeline. Putting significant new capital into oil sands projects to fill that pipeline, beyond optimization and debottlenecking, now requires additional scrutiny from a consortium that is already at odds with the federal carbon framework. The math is not in dispute. Pathways is large, expensive, technically intricate, and dependent on the same companies the federal government is taxing at a higher rate.

Premier Smith has appealed the judicial ruling that quashed Alberta’s separation referendum question, and BC Premier Eby has openly questioned whether projects should be fast-tracked because a premier threatens to leave the country. The internal politics of this deal are nowhere near settled, and we are not convinced the September 2027 construction commencement date will hold. Ottawa wants the headline. The producers want the economics. Those two things have not yet been reconciled, and we will believe the September 2027 timeline when we see steel in the ground.

We Are Watching Prairie Connector

South Bow announced last Thursday that its proposed Prairie Connector pipeline secured the binding commitments it needed in the March 30 open season. Twenty-year firm transportation commitments from Hardisty to U.S. delivery points are now in hand, with a final investment decision targeted for mid-2027. Reuters reported earlier this month that at least 400,000 barrels per day was committed against the 450,000 barrels per day on offer. South Bow did not disclose the final tally.

The project would extend from Hardisty to the Canada-U.S. border in Phillips County, Montana, using roughly 150 kilometres of partially built and currently unused Keystone XL infrastructure, plus 380 kilometres of new 36-inch pipe. At the border, Prairie Connector hands off to Bridger Pipeline’s proposed 550,000 barrel per day expansion that runs south to Guernsey, Wyoming. President Trump approved the cross-border permit for that crossing on April 30, his third time signing off on a permit at that location. Biden rescinded the previous one in 2021.

ATB Cormark estimates the project will cost approximately $3 billion and take two to three years to build after FID. Under South Bow’s stated mid-2027 FID target and a conservative construction window, that puts honest in-service somewhere in 2030, not before, and the permit durability risk is real. Energy analyst AJ O’Donnell at TPH said publicly that without assurances a future U.S. administration would not revoke the permit, as Biden did with Keystone XL, the project is likely to be stalled. South Bow CEO Bevin Wirzba has been using the word durable in every public statement on the project for a reason.

Spreading the cross-border risk between South Bow and Bridger, rather than concentrating it in one developer the way TC Energy carried Keystone XL on its own, is a meaningful structural change. Whether it is meaningful enough to survive a future administration that decides cross-border crude pipelines are politically inconvenient remains to be seen. For our customers, the relevant point is that this is a 2030 story at the earliest, and that the egress crunch will be resolved by rail, not by Prairie Connector, in the near term.

We Are Watching the Jones Act

The Jones Act waiver Trump signed on March 17 has now generated more than 60 foreign-flag vessel movements between U.S. ports, including at least six crude cargoes. Phillips 66 has used the waiver twice to move WTI and Bakken from its Nederland terminal in Texas to its Bayway refinery in New Jersey, which is exactly the route Bakken-loaded tank cars have served for the past decade. The Aframax Front Altair loaded 596,700 barrels of WTI at Beaumont on April 29 and discharged at Bayway on May 13. That cargo alone represents roughly 1,100 tank cars of equivalent volume.

Foreign-flag tonnage is cheaper than Jones Act tonnage, and cheaper than rail when the rail spread is wherever it is on a given week. PBF Energy plans to use the waiver this quarter to move WTI and other domestic grades to its Paulsboro refinery in New Jersey, which historically ran Saudi Aramco crude, and a foreign-flagged Suezmax recently moved 848,000 barrels of WTI from Enterprise to Monroe Energy’s Trainer refinery in Pennsylvania. Marathon has used the waiver to move jet fuel from the USGC to Alaska and alkylate from the USGC to Los Angeles. Phillips 66 has tripled its time-chartered vessel count over the past two years and is leveraging that flexibility hard.

The waiver runs through August 15, 2026. Every gallon of crude that moves coastwise during the waiver window is a gallon that does not move by rail or by pipeline, and the displaced demand has shown up directly in Bakken-to-east-coast rail economics. If Hormuz reopens cleanly and the waiver is allowed to expire on schedule, that displaced demand comes back. If the waiver is extended into the fall, it does not. The Offshore Marine Service Association is fighting the extension. Hawaii’s congressional delegation is pushing for it.

PFL has been fielding calls from shippers on east coast crude routings and what August 15th actually means for fleet utilization. Our take is straightforward: assume the waiver expires on schedule, plan for the rail demand to come back, and be ready for an extension that pushes the recovery into Q4.

We Continue to Watch the Surface Transportation Board

The STB accepted the revised Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger application Thursday of last week, then immediately put the entire process on hold. The proceedings are now in abeyance until UP and NS submit supplemental information by July 27th, and the National Environmental Policy Act review is on hold along with everything else.

The Board identified specific areas where the revised application is unclear or underdeveloped, including market share projections, service assurance plans, and passenger rail considerations. It also denied UP and NS’s motion to allow informal communications between the railroads and Board members outside the formal record, citing concern that a broad waiver at this stage could compromise the integrity of the proceeding. The walk-away clause remains January 28, 2028. Either side can exit by then.

BNSF, CN, CPKC, the National Industrial Transportation League, the Freight Rail Customer Alliance and the Stop the Rail Merger Coalition all issued statements welcoming the additional scrutiny. NITL’s executive director said even with the application now deemed complete, it is still lacking the transparency the Board and stakeholders need for a thorough review. UP has said publicly it will exit the deal if the Board orders widespread line sales or broad trackage rights as approval conditions, and the request for more detail on market share and service assurance suggests the Board is not ready to take UP and NS’s numbers at face value. That is the central tension. UP wants a clean approval. The Board wants thorough analysis. Those goals are not the same.

The July 27tg supplemental filing deadline pushes the formal review further into the second half of 2026 and makes a final decision before late 2027 highly unlikely. PFL is unconvinced this merger gets across the finish line on the timeline UP and NS originally floated, and the abeyance order last week makes that doubt sharper.

We Are Watching CPKC

CPKC’s roughly 300 signals and communications workers walked off the job at 8:00 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time Sunday morning after the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Canadian Signals and Communications System Council No. 11 rejected the railroad’s latest contract offers. CPKC has implemented its contingency plans and says safe and efficient rail service has continued across its Canadian network. The strike was backed by a 96% mandate vote and follows months of bargaining including federally mandated conciliation and mediation. CPKC is publicly encouraging the IBEW to accept binding arbitration to end the work stoppage.

These are the people who install and repair trackside signals, switches, and grade-crossing warning systems across CPKC’s Canadian network. CPKC has stated it has contingency plans to maintain safe and efficient operations, but a strike of any meaningful duration degrades the railroad’s ability to respond to signal failures and grade-crossing incidents, full stop. Replacement coverage is not the same as a fully staffed signals department, and every shipper on the CPKC network knows it.

The union is citing wages, on-call obligations, work-life balance, and retention. Their position is that experienced workers are leaving for better-paying opportunities elsewhere and that CPKC’s offer does not address it. CPKC says its offer is consistent with the wage and benefit increases it has negotiated with every other Canadian union in the past year, and that negotiations are continuing in good faith. Both things can be true. The 96% mandate suggests the workforce does not see it that way.

For our customers and the broader Canadian rail network, a prolonged CPKC C&S strike means slower trains, more cautious dispatch decisions, and a real possibility of federal intervention if the work stoppage extends beyond a week. Folks, the Canadian rail labour environment has been a slow-rolling problem for two years, and the strike that started Sunday morning is the latest chapter.

We Are Watching Key Economic Indicators

Consumer Spending

In April 2026, total consumer spending adjusted for inflation rose 0.2% from March 2026, continuing a moderate pace of growth in household demand. This follows a 0.1% increase in February and a 0.5% increase in January. Year-over-year inflation-adjusted total spending in April 2026 was up 2.7%.

Inflation-adjusted spending on goods rose 0.1% in April, following a 0.3% increase in March 2026. Inflation-adjusted spending on services increased 0.3% in April, extending the ongoing strength in service-sector consumption and marking the thirteenth consecutive month-to-month increase.

Consumer Confidence

The Index of Consumer Sentiment from the University of Michigan decreased from 49.8 in April to 44.8 in May.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index decreased from 93.8 in April to 93.1 in April.

Lease Bids

• 100, 21.9K 117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in the Midwest. For use in CO2 service. Period: 6 months.
• 30-50, 30K 117J Tanks located off of NS or CSX in the Northeast. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year.
• 20-50, 4000-5000 Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in Houston. For use in Urea, Potash, and  Ammonium Sulfate service. Period: 6-12 Months.
• 200, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of CSX or NS in Ohio. For use in Propylene service. Period: 18 Months.
• 30-50, 25.5K DOT 111 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in various locations. For use in Asphalt service. Period: 1-3 Years.
• 40, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP in Eunice, LA. For use in Propane service. Period: 1 Year.
• 40, 29K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in the Midwest. For use in Veg Oil service. Period: 5 Year.
• 70, 30K DOT 117 Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Ohio. For use in Diesel service. Period: 3 months.
• 20, DOT 117J Tanks located off of NS, CSX, CN, or CPKC in various locations. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year. Need gauge rods.
• 300, 5200CF Covered Hoppers located off of CP or CM in Canada. For use in Petcoke service. Period: 3 Year.
• 10, 30K 117J Tanks located off of BNSF in Canada. For use in Propane or Butane service. Period: 3 Year.
• 20, 28K or larger 117J Tanks located off of BNSF or UP in California. For use in Crude service. Period: 6 months.
• 75, 30K 117 Tanks located off of NS in Ohio. For use in Condensate service. Period: 6-12 Months. Mag Rods Not Needed.

Sales Bids

• 28, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in Texas. For use in Cement service. Cement Gates needed.
• 20, 17K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in corn syrup service.
• 120, Various Open-Top Aluminum Rotary Gondolas located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in Sulphur service. Built 2004 or later.
• 30, 29K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in Chicago. For use in Veg Oil service.

Lease Offers

• 21, 6351 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 29, 6500 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 50, 20K DOT117J Tanks located off of all class 1s in Moving. Last used in styrene.
• 29, 25.5K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in Texas. Cars are currently clean.
• 200, 340W DOT 112J Tanks located off of all class 1s in Multiple Locations. Last used in propane and butane. Cars are currently clean.
• 15, 6200CF Covered Hoppers located off of all class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 30, 6500CF Covered Hoppers located off of all class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 6, 21K Stainless Steel Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in surfactant. Cars are currently clean.
• 100, 28.4K DOT 117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in Beaumont, TX. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in the South. Last used in ethanol.
• 30, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable jet fuel.
• 80, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable diesel.
• 10, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable naphtha.
• 10, 29K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gasoline additive. Coiled and Insulated.
• 39, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Iowa. Last used in diesel.
• 99, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in diesel.
• 1, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in naphtha.
• 2, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in giesel.
• 1, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gas blend stock.
• 3, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gasoline.
• 36, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of CPKC in Texas. Last used in diesel.
• 6, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of CPKC in Texas. Last used in naphtha.

Sales Offers

• 81, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in TX. Last used in Multiple Services. Requal Due in 2025.
• 35, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in the Midwest. Last used in Sand.
• 25, 30K 117J Tanks located off of CSX in Jackson, TN. Last used in Fuels. Newly Requalified.

Call PFL today to discuss your needs and our availability and market reach. Whether you are looking to lease cars, lease out cars, buy cars, or sell cars call PFL today at 239-390-2885

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Jobs Update

Initial jobless claims seasonally adjusted for the week ending May 16, 2026 came in at 209,000, versus the adjusted number of 212,000 people from the week prior, down 3,000 people week over week.

Continuing jobless claims came in at 1,782,000, versus the adjusted number of 1,776,000 people from the week prior, up 6,000 week-over-week.

Stocks closed higher on Friday of last week and higher week-over-week

The DOW closed higher on Friday of last week, up 294.29 points (0.59%), closing out the week at 50,579.95, up 1,053.78 points week-over-week. The S&P 500 closed higher on Friday of last week, up 27.72 points (0.37%), and closed out the week at 7,473.44, up 64.94 points week-over-week. The NASDAQ closed higher on Friday of last week, up 50.87 points (0.19%), and closed out the week at 26,343.97, up 119.83 points week-over-week.

In overnight trading, DOW futures traded higher and are expected to open at 50,895 this morning, up 233 points from Friday’s close.

Crude oil closed higher on Friday of last week and lower week-over-week

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed up $0.25 per barrel (0.26%), to close at $96.60 on Friday of last week, but down $8.82 week-over-week. Brent crude closed up $0.96 per barrel (0.94%), to close at $103.54, but down $5.72 week-over-week.

One Exchange WCS (Western Canadian Select) for July settled on Friday of last week at US$14.00 below the WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average). The implied value was US$77.72 per barrel.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 7.9 million barrels week-over-week. At 445.0 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are 2% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 1.5 million barrels week-over-week and are 5% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories increased by 400,000 barrels week-over-week and are 9% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane/propylene inventories increased by 400,000 barrels week-over-week and are 51% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane prices closed at 84.3 cents per gallon on Friday of last week, up 1.1 cents per gallon week-over-week, and up 6.2 cents year-over-year.

Overall, total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 9 million barrels week-over-week during the week ending May 15, 2026.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6 million barrels per day during the week ending May 15, 2026, an increase of 116,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 5.8 million barrels per day, 1.5% less than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) averaged 547,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 173,000 barrels per day during the week ending May 15, 2026.

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 5.604 million barrels per day during the week ending May 15, 2026, an increase of 112,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil exports averaged 5.571 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.3 million barrels per day during the week ending May 15, 2026, which was 80,000 barrels per day less week-over-week.

WTI is poised to open at $92.81, down $3.79 per barrel from Friday’s close.

North American Rail Traffic

Week Ending May 20, 2026:

Total North American weekly rail volumes were up (+5.09%) in week 21, compared with the same week last year. Total Carloads for the week ending May 20, 2026 were 334,933, up (+2.54%) compared with the same week in 2025, while weekly Intermodal volume was 342,509, up (+7.72%) year over year. 10 of the AAR’s 11 major traffic categories posted year-over-year increases. The largest decrease came from Coal (-6.63%). The largest increase was Grain (+14.70%).

In the East, CSX’s total volumes were up (+6.22%), with the largest decrease coming from Grain (-20.88%), while the largest increase came from Metallic Ores and Metals (+29.17%). NS’s total volumes were up (+4.15%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+25.70%), while the largest decrease came from Forest Products (-1.17%).

In the West, BNSF’s total volumes were up (+8.09%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+20.19%), while the largest decrease came from Chemicals (-7.18%). UP’s total volumes were up (+3.24%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+10.94%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-24.05%).

In Canada, CN’s total volumes were up (+2.93%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+48.95%), while the largest decrease came from Other (-13.07%). CPKCS’s total volumes were up (+2.49%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+55.07%), while the largest decrease came from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (-26.97%).

Source Data: AAR – PFL Analytics

North American Rig Count Summary

North American rig count was up by +21 rigs week-over-week. The US rig count was up by +7 rigs week-over-week, but down by -8 rigs year-over-year. The US currently has 558 active rigs. Canada’s rig count was up by +14 rigs week-over-week and up by +24 rigs year-over-year. Canada currently has 138 active rigs. Overall, year-over-year we are up by +16 rigs collectively.

We are watching a few things out there for you:

PFL attended the annual BATCH Golf Tournament, Calgary, Canada 

PFL was a proud participant and sponsor in the annual BATCH golf tournament at Springbank Links Golf Club, in Calgary, Canada on Thursday of last week where energy industry leaders gathered to raise funds for the Alberta Children’s Hospital. PFL’s team set up at Hole #8, offering water, hydration packs, and snacks, and was well received by golfers as they made their way through the course.

Companies such as Enbridge, Suncor, Gibson Energy, Plains, Strathcona, Athabasca, Broadmill, Husky, Pembina, and Tidewater joined in the Western-themed festivities, to raise funds for the Alberta Children’s Hospital. The hospital provides essential care to children and families in need, and the funds raised through the tournament will directly impact countless lives.  The event served as a reminder of the power of collaboration and the importance of giving back to organizations that make a profound difference in people’s lives.

We Continue to Watch Hormuz

Crude oil markets handed back a chunk of the war premium last week, with WTI settling around $98 by Friday after a sharp selloff on Wednesday of last week knocked nearly 6% off the front-month contract. The trigger was speculation that the Strait of Hormuz could reopen sooner than the market had assumed, after President Trump told reporters the United States was in the “final stages” of talks with Iran. Brent finished the week down more than 6%, and both benchmarks remain roughly 50% above pre-war levels.

Mediated negotiations through Pakistan turned material over the weekend. Trump told reporters Saturday the framework is “largely negotiated, subject to finalization” and includes a 60-day ceasefire extension plus de-mining and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has reportedly committed in principle to reopen the strait and dispose of its enriched uranium stockpile. Prime Minister Netanyahu pushed back in a Saturday call with Trump, concerned that an interim framework leaves Iran’s nuclear program intact, and no signing was expected immediately. Baker Hughes told investors last month its planning assumption was no reopening until the second half of 2026, a benchmark that looks immediately stale if the framework signs.

AAA put the national gasoline average at $4.56 per gallon ahead of Memorial Day weekend, the highest since 2022 and up $1.38 year-over-year. Forty-five million Americans were expected to drive at least 50 miles for the holiday, a record. EIA data for the week ending May 15th showed commercial crude stocks drew 7.9 million barrels, gasoline stocks were down to 214.2 million barrels (the lowest since November), and refinery utilization rates were back up to 91.6%. The product chain was tight heading into the busiest driving period of the year.  We will have to see how this week’s reported numbers shape up!

None of this matters for rail, however. Middle East barrels that historically moved west are stuck on the wrong side of the chokepoint. North American crude  by rail is filling whatever gap it can and the geopolitical risk premium is not going away with one framework announcement. PFL is watching closely. Stay tuned to us for further updates.

We Are Watching Petroleum Carloads

The four-week rolling average of petroleum carloads carried on the six largest North American railroads rose to 29,257 from 29,206 which was an increase of +51 rail cars week-over-week. Canadian volumes were mixed. CN’s shipments were lower by -9.0% week-over-week, CPKC’s volumes were higher by +5.0% week-over-week. U.S. shipments were also mix. The NS had the largest percentage decrease and was down by -11.0%. The UP had the largest percentage increase and was up by +6.0% week-over-week.

We Continue to Watch Our Strategic Petroleum Reserves 

The Trump Administration announced earlier this month that it would loan 53.3 million barrels of crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to energy companies as part of a coordinated international effort to stabilize oil markets disrupted by the ongoing U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. Nine companies, including Exxon Mobil, Trafigura, and Marathon Petroleum, accepted roughly 58% of the 92.5 million barrels the Department of Energy offered in April.

The DOE has now loaned more than 80 million barrels this spring and continues working toward a planned release of 172 million barrels under a March agreement between more than 30 members of the International Energy Agency to collectively release around 400 million barrels globally. The coordinated action is intended to offset severe supply disruptions and elevated fuel prices caused by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply normally passes.

Recent DOE data showed a record weekly SPR drawdown of approximately 9.9 million barrels, pushing total reserve levels down to roughly 374 million barrels, the lowest level since July 2024. At the same time, global commercial oil inventories have fallen sharply, with the IEA reporting a record 246 million barrel decline across March and April.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol warned that the conflict has created the largest energy crisis on record and said additional strategic reserve releases remain possible if supply disruptions continue. According to the IEA, member nations have already released about 20% of available emergency reserves.

Meanwhile, rising fuel prices remain a growing political and economic concern ahead of the November midterm elections. U.S. gasoline prices recently climbed to an average of $4.52 per gallon, the highest level since 2022. The DOE said companies borrowing oil from the SPR will repay the crude with premiums ranging from roughly 18% to 28%, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright stating that the administration intends to replenish every released barrel with at least 1.2 barrels returned in the future.

We Are Watching Enbridge

Enbridge rejected 19% of heavy crude nominations on its 3.1 million barrel per day Mainline system for June flow, up from 14% in both April and May and the highest apportionment level since before the Trans Mountain Expansion came online in May 2024. The driver is straightforward refinery economics. The Chicago WCS 6-3-2-1 crack spread averaged $68 per barrel during the June cycle, and that kind of margin pulls every available barrel southbound regardless of pipeline crowding.

Apportionment could intensify further into July. Turnarounds at Syncrude and the Suncor Base Plant wrap up by mid to late June, returning displaced bitumen volumes to the system right as summer driving demand peaks. The combination of high crack spreads, returning oil sands production, and ongoing TMX utilization sets up the tightest Western Canadian egress conditions since the Trans Mountain Expansion start-up.

For PFL customers, tracking egress economics in Western Canada, June apportionment at these levels matters more than any new pipeline announcement. Crude by rail is not a swing component. Barely any 117J crude cars are available, build times run one to two years, and leasing companies need five-year commitments before they will put new builds on the rails. None of that gets fixed by a tight June market. But, if apportionment stays at these levels through the summer and into the back half of the year, this could be the start of another crude by rail cycle. Time will tell, and it depends on what happens geopolitically. PFL is watching closely. Stay tuned for further updates.

Separately, Enbridge picked up an important litigation win on the Line 5 reroute last week. A Wisconsin state circuit court judge largely upheld the Wisconsin DNR’s November 2024 environmental permit on May 15th, denying the substantive elements of an appeal from the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Judge John Anderson found that most of the band’s complaints were disagreements with the underlying administrative ruling rather than evidence of process errors. Enbridge confirmed there is no impact to the construction schedule. The 41-mile reroute around the band’s reservation, replacing roughly 20 miles of existing Line 5, carries a C$1.2 billion price tag, one-third of which Enbridge attributes to “six years of considerable permitting, legal and tribal engagement.”  This is good news for U.S. and Canadian refiners and energy users – it is not possible to replace line 5 with rail cars it is now that simple.

We Continue to Watch the Surface Transportation Board

The Surface Transportation Board faces a May 30th deadline to rule on whether the refiled Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern merger application is complete enough to advance to formal review. If accepted, the year-long evaluation process for what would become the first U.S. transcontinental Class I railroad finally gets underway. If rejected for the second time, the applicants go back to the drawing board with no obvious path to keeping the original timeline.

All four other Class I railroads remain on record opposing the application as filed. BNSF wrote the Board on May 14 citing “hundreds of documented problems” and arguing UP and NS are “compromising the integrity of the board’s proceedings.” CN Chief Commercial Officer Janet Drysdale told the Wolfe Research conference Thursday of last week that the merger may have a path forward but the higher bar set by the 2001 STB rules “has not been demonstrated to this point.” CPKC’s Keith Creel went further at RBC Capital Markets the prior day: if a combined network of that scale “goes into meltdown mode because it’s too complicated, we all bleed. If it fails, we all fail”.

UP CEO Jim Vena pushed back at Wolfe on Wednesday of last week, saying he was confident the updated application meets the Board’s guidance and that the deal “is good for America.” The applicants project annual capture of 303,000 loads from BNSF and 244,000 from CSX, alongside $3.5 billion in claimed shipper savings and 24-to-48-hour transit time improvements. CSX, sitting out of the merger conversation entirely after Berkshire Hathaway repeatedly declined to acquire it, has launched a shipper mobilization website to document its case against the deal.

For PFL customers with corridor exposure to either system, the planning question is the same it has been for six months: what happens to your interchange points, your contract rates, and your routing flexibility if this deal actually closes. The STB ruling next week is procedural, not substantive, but it sets the clock for everything that follows. PFL is watching for the May 30th ruling and will update customers as the review process develops, so stay tuned.

We Continue to Watch Left Wing Carney

Prime Minister Carney was in Vancouver last Wednesday, telling the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade that the world is in an “energy crisis” and Canada must do its part. The pitch was for the proposed Alberta to Pacific bitumen pipeline that he and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith signed an implementation agreement on the week prior. Carney laid out three conditions: the Pathways carbon capture project must proceed, British Columbians must share substantial economic benefits, and Section 35 First Nations consultation is “non-negotiable.”

BC Premier David Eby was not impressed. Eby said last week that Canada cannot work if “separatist premiers” get all the attention of the federal government, and reiterated that the West Coast oil tanker moratorium is a hard line for his government. The proposed pipeline still has no agreed route, no private sector proponent, and no committed capital. Eby also reminded the press that the Coastal First Nations and BC Union of Indian Chiefs have made it clear a north coast pipeline is not happening on their watch.

On the other side of the deal, the Oil Sands Alliance, which represents about 95% of Canadian oil sands production through Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus, Suncor, Imperial Oil, and ConocoPhillips Canada, came out swinging against the carbon pricing component of the Carney-Smith agreement. The new industrial carbon tax is set at C$100 per tonne from 2027 through 2029, rising in phased steps to C$140 per tonne by 2040, and no other major producing country imposes anything comparable. Oil Sands Alliance president Kendall Dilling: “an industrial carbon tax only adds uncompetitive costs to industry on top of the costs of a carbon capture project.” CAPP CEO Lisa Baiton echoed the point: “if growing Canadian energy exports is our goal, we should not be adding costs to oil and natural gas production when no other directly competing country has done so.”

Run the math: atC$140 per tonne, the carbon tax alone adds roughly C$10 per barrel to a typical oil sands operation before any of the actual Pathway’s infrastructure gets built. The C$16.5 billion Pathways project itself still has no signed agreement, just a commitment to work toward one “expeditiously.” For an Alberta-to-Pacific pipeline that depends on Pathways proceeding, depends on BC dropping the tanker ban, and depends on First Nations consent that does not exist, the math gets ugly fast. PFL is watching this one with the same skepticism as the upstream operators. In our opinion, left wing Carney know this deal does not have any legs and is only politically motivated and setting up the Premier for failure. Stay tuned for further updates.

We Are Watching the ACE Rail Terminal

Keyera, AltaGas, and CN announced a $240 million LPG rail terminal project last Wednesday in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland near Fort Saskatchewan. The Alberta Corridor Export Rail Terminal, called ACE, will move 45,000 barrels per day of propane and butane on unit trains to AltaGas’s Ridley Island propane export facility in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Target service date is mid-2028.

The economics behind ACE are the economics behind every Canadian LPG export project of the last decade. Prince Rupert sits roughly 10 days sailing time from East Asia, less than half the 25-day USGC voyage and meaningfully shorter than the 18-day Middle East route. AltaGas already supplies more than 19% of Japan’s propane and roughly 10% of China’s first-quarter propane imports through Ridley Island. Adding 45,000 barrels per day of dedicated capacity into that corridor materially increases Canadian competitive pressure on USGC exporters chasing the same Asian buyers.

AltaGas is also expanding its Ridley Island footprint independently. The adjacent Ridley Island Energy Export Facility is 75% complete and on schedule for fourth quarter 2026 startup, with 56,000 barrels per day of initial capacity and another 30,000 barrels per day of propane export capacity scheduled to follow in second half 2027. ACE feeds into that growing terminal complex. Keyera’s $240 million commitment, $100 million above its previously disclosed 2026 capital plan, follows directly from the company’s $5.3 billion acquisition of Plains All American’s Canadian NGL business earlier this year. CN Chief Commercial Officer Janet Drysdale told the Wolfe Research conference Thursday of last week that ACE is “the proof point that this isn’t growth for a year or two. This is a decades long growth story.”

For PFL customers in the LPG and NGL space, ACE is a structurally important project regardless of which side of the border you ship from. Mid-2028 is two years away, and in the meantime the rail capacity required to move growing Canadian LPG production to tidewater is being booked up. PFL is watching this corridor closely and is positioned to advise shippers thinking through fleet implications. Stay tuned for further updates.

We Continue to Watch BP

The BP Whiting lockout enters its third month with no resolution in sight. The United Steelworkers walked off the bargaining table last Monday without engaging on the company’s outstanding contract proposal, asking instead that BP lift the lockout and return to the prior agreement. BP’s Whiting refinery, the Midwest’s largest at 430,000 barrels per day, has been running on trained replacement workers since the lockout began on March 19th.

The company moved last Friday to keep the conversation alive, with BP putting forward what it called a “new good faith offer” intended to advance talks. The substance remains the same set of issues that broke negotiations in February: a shift from seniority-based to competency-based job progression, a 150-day strike or lockout notice provision, and modifications to the prior contract that BP argues are needed for “sustainable, reliable operations for the long term.” The USW disagrees, and after 60 plus face-to-face bargaining sessions and a two-month lockout, neither side appears close to moving.

For the Midwest product market, the timing could not be worse. Refining margins have surged across the U.S. on the back of war-related supply disruptions, with PBF, Phillips 66, Marathon, and Valero all reporting first-quarter margins materially above the year-ago period and guiding to continued strength through the back half of 2026. Marathon ran record western Canadian crude in April and more than doubled Canadian volumes at its USGC refineries. The Whiting situation is the one notable exception to an industry that is otherwise printing money, and the longer the lockout runs, the more Midwest gasoline and distillate flows from Gulf Coast and East Coast refiners have to pick up the slack.

PFL is watching the labor situation closely, particularly the second-order effects on Midwest product distribution. Refined product rail movements out of the Gulf Coast and PADD 1 are picking up volumes that would normally come off Whiting. Stay tuned for further updates as talks progress.

We Are Watching the BUILD America 250 Act

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved the BUILD America 250 Act on Thursday of last week on a 61-2 vote, sending the five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill forward with one provision that is going to cost freight shippers money if it survives Senate negotiations. The Railway Safety Act, folded in as an amendment by a 54-11 vote, mandates expanded wayside defect detector deployment, two-person crew minimums, slower speeds for high-hazard flammable trains, and an acceleration of the DOT-111 tank car phaseout.

The BUILD America 250 Act itself authorizes approximately $580 billion over fiscal years 2027 through 2031 for roads, bridges, transit, rail, and highway safety programs, succeeding the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. The bill cleared committee after a 14-hour markup with more than 100 amendments worked through. The Railway Safety Act component drew the sharpest industry opposition. The Association of American Railroads called it “the kind of special-interest driven policy that runs counter to the administration’s stated goal of lowering costs,” arguing the package “would needlessly add tens of billions of dollars in compliance costs” without addressing the actual NTSB findings on the East Palestine derailment.

Short line railroads are in a difficult position. The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association acknowledged some genuinely useful provisions in the bill, particularly the CRISI program reauthorization and continued grade crossing funding. But the Railway Safety Act mandates apply across the entire rail network including short lines that had nothing to do with East Palestine. A separate amendment authorizing a heavier truck weight pilot program adds pressure from the trucking side. The Intermodal Association of North America also flagged that without dedicated funding for MEGA and INFRA discretionary grant programs, the bill does not move the needle on intermodal capacity. President Trump has publicly supported the Railway Safety Act provisions.

The 61-2 committee vote signals momentum, but this bill has a long road through full House passage, Senate negotiation, and conference committee before anything reaches the President’s desk. The Railway Safety Act provision is the one to watch. If it survives intact into the final legislation, freight rail compliance costs go up across the network, and those costs flow through to shippers. If it gets stripped or narrowed in the Senate, the broader bill becomes much more workable for the industry. PFL is watching as the process develops and will update customers on any provisions that materially affect tank car economics. Stay tuned.

We Continue to Watch the Supreme Court

A week after the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II broke the longstanding shield protecting freight brokers from accident liability suits under the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act’s safety exception, industry executives are openly worrying that the ruling will reach further than the brokerages it directly addressed. Two of trucking’s most prominent voices: former U.S. Xpress founder, Max Fuller and CH Robinson CEO, Dave Bozeman, said separately last Thursday that the same reasoning could pull shippers into liability exposure.

Bozeman, speaking at the Wolfe Research transportation conference, said directly that shippers “are now going to have to start looking” at their own exposure. “This particular ruling now changes the dynamic and the space of where shippers can be liable on some things. So their vetting process of brokers is going to go up.” Fuller, appearing on a FreightWaves State of Freight webinar the same day, made the same point about shippers chasing cheaper carriers: “they support people that aren’t being as safe as they should.” The legal hook is the Court’s finding that the F4A’s “with respect to motor vehicles” language in the safety exception applies broadly enough to allow state action against any party in the carrier selection chain.

The ruling lands in an already tightening trucking market. The SONAR National Truckload Index broke $2.64 per mile last Thursday, up from just under $2.20 on May 1, and spot rates are running 35% to 40% above year-ago levels. Bozeman estimates that 20% to 30% of smaller and less-scaled brokers may exit the market as larger players capture the volumes that need stronger vetting infrastructure. The cost pressure is not contained to the brokerage segment. Insurance premiums, vetting program build-out, and reduced low-cost capacity all flow through to the shipper invoice eventually.

For PFL’s shipper customer base, the Montgomery ruling is being discussed across the trucking industry as a structural change in liability exposure, not a one-time compliance burden. The carrier vetting standards that were optional last month are not optional next month. PFL is watching how the case law develops and will update customers as the implications come into focus. Stay tuned for further updates. 

We are watching Class 1 Industrial Headcount

Class I railroads employed 115,080 workers in the United States in April 2026, a 0.23% increase from March 2026’s count of 114,811 but a -3.75% year-over-year decrease from April 2025’s total of 119,562, according to Surface Transportation Board data. 

Three of the six employment categories posted month-over-month increases between March and April 2026. These were Professional and Administrative, up 0.62% to 8,887 workers; Maintenance of Way and Structures, which increased 0.64% to 28,343 workers; and Transportation (train and engine), which increased 0.51% to 48,860 workers.

The categories that posted month-over-month decreases were Executives, officials, and staff assistants, down -0.41% to 8,079 workers; Maintenance of Equipment and Stores, down -0.72% to 16,234 workers; and Transportation (other than train and engine), down -1.31% to 4,677 workers.

Year-over-year, only one category posted an employment gain: Executives, officials, and staff assistants, up 2.76%.

Categories that registered year-over-year decreases in April 2026 were Professional and Administrative, down -7.96%; Maintenance of Way and Structures, down -0.53%; Maintenance of Equipment and Stores, down -4.79%; Transportation (other than train and engine), down -7.40%; and Transportation (train and engine), down -5.03%.

Lease Bids

• 100, 21.9K 117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in the Midwest. For use in CO2 service. Period: 6 months.
• 30-50, 30K 117J Tanks located off of NS or CSX in the Northeast. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year.
• 20-50, 4000-5000 Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in Houston. For use in Urea, Potash, and  Ammonium Sulfate service. Period: 6-12 Months.
• 200, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of CSX or NS in Ohio. For use in Propylene service. Period: 18 Months.
• 30-50, 25.5K DOT 111 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in various locations. For use in Asphalt service. Period: 1-3 Years.
• 40, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP in Eunice, LA. For use in Propane service. Period: 1 Year.
• 40, 29K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in the Midwest. For use in Veg Oil service. Period: 5 Year.
• 70, 30K DOT 117 Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Ohio. For use in Diesel service. Period: 3 months.
• 100, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in Texas. For use in Propane service. Period: 6 Months.
• 20, DOT 117J Tanks located off of NS, CSX, CN, or CPKC in various locations. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year. Need gauge rods.
• 300, 5200CF Covered Hoppers located off of CP or CM in Canada. For use in Petcoke service. Period: 3 Year.
• 10, 30K 117J Tanks located off of BNSF in Canada. For use in Propane or Butane service. Period: 3 Year.
• 20, 28K or larger 117J Tanks located off of BNSF or UP in California. For use in Crude service. Period: 6 months.
• 75, 30K 117 Tanks located off of NS in Ohio. For use in Condesnate service. Period: 6-12 Months. Mag Rods Not Needed.

Sales Bids

• 28, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in Texas. For use in Cement service. Cement Gates needed.
• 20, 17K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in corn syrup service.
• 120, Various Open-Top Aluminum Rotary Gondolas located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in Sulphur service. Built 2004 or later.
• 30, 29K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in Chicago. For use in Veg Oil service.

Lease Offers

• 21, 6351 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 29, 6500 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 50, 20K DOT117J Tanks located off of all class 1s in Moving. Last used in styrene.
• 29, 25.5K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in Texas. Cars are currently clean.
• 200, 340W DOT 112J Tanks located off of all class 1s in Multiple Locations. Last used in propane and butane. Cars are currently clean.
• 15, 6200CF Covered Hoppers located off of all class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 30, 6500CF Covered Hoppers located off of all class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 6, 21K Stainless Steel Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in surfactant. Cars are currently clean.
• 100, 28.4K DOT 117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in Beaumont, TX. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in the South. Last used in ethanol.
• 30, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable jet fuel.
• 80, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable diesel.
• 10, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable naphtha.
• 10, 29K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gasoline additive. Coiled and Insulated.
• 39, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Iowa. Last used in diesel.
• 99, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in diesel.
• 1, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in naphtha.
• 2, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in giesel.
• 1, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gas blend stock.
• 3, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gasoline.
• 36, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of CPKC in Texas. Last used in diesel.
• 6, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of CPKC in Texas. Last used in naphtha.

Sales Offers

• 81, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in TX. Last used in Multiple Services. Requal Due in 2025.
• 35, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in the Midwest. Last used in Sand.
• 25, 30K 117J Tanks located off of CSX in Jackson, TN. Last used in Fuels. Newly Requalified.

Call PFL today to discuss your needs and our availability and market reach. Whether you are looking to lease cars, lease out cars, buy cars, or sell cars call PFL today at 239-390-2885

Live Railcar Markets

PFL will be at the Following Conferences

The post PFL Railcar Report 5-26-2026 appeared first on PFL Petroleum Services LTD.

Jobs Update

Initial jobless claims seasonally adjusted for the week ending May 9, 2026 came in at 211,000, versus the adjusted number of 199,000 people from the week prior, up 12,000 people week over week.

Continuing jobless claims came in at 1,782,000, versus the adjusted number of 1,758,000 people from the week prior, up 24,000 week-over-week.

Stocks closed lower on Friday of last week and mixed week-over-week

The DOW closed lower on Friday of last week, down -537.29 points (-1.07%), closing out the week at 49,526.17, down -82.99 points week-over-week. The S&P 500 closed lower on Friday of last week, down -92.74 points (-1.24%), and closed out the week at 7,408.50, up 9.57 points week-over-week. The NASDAQ closed lower on Friday of last week, down -410.08 points (-1.54%), and closed out the week at 26,224.14, down -22.94 points week-over-week.

In overnight trading, DOW futures traded lower and are expected to open at 49,316 this morning, down 301 points from Friday’s close.

Crude oil closed higher on Friday of last week and higher week-over-week

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed up $4.25 per barrel (4.2%), to close at $105.42 on Friday of last week, and up $10.00 week-over-week. Brent crude closed up $3.54 per barrel (3.35%), to close at $109.26, and up $7.97 week-over-week.

One Exchange WCS (Western Canadian Select) for June delivery settled on Friday of last week at US$15.35 below the WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average). The implied value was US$80.90 per barrel.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 4.3 million barrels week-over-week. At 452.9 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are 0.3% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 4.1 million barrels week-over-week and are 5% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories increased by 200,000 barrels week-over-week and are 9% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane/propylene inventories increased by 3.6 million barrels week-over-week and are 55% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane prices closed at 83.2 cents per gallon on Friday of last week, down 0.7 cents per gallon week-over-week, but up 12.8 cents year-over-year.

Overall, total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 5.1 million barrels week-over-week during the week ending May 8, 2026.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.9 million barrels per day during the week ending May 8, 2026, an increase of 424,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 5.8 million barrels per day, 1.0% more than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) averaged 303,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 214,000 barrels per day during the week ending May 8, 2026.

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 5.492 million barrels per day during the week ending May 8, 2026, an increase of 742,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil exports averaged 5.37 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.4 million barrels per day during the week ending May 8, 2026, which was 369,000 barrels per day more week-over-week.

WTI is poised to open at $102.05, up $1.03 per barrel from Friday’s close.

North American Rail Traffic

Week Ending May 13, 2026:

Total North American weekly rail volumes were up (+4.11%) in week 20, compared with the same week last year. Total Carloads for the week ending May 13, 2026 were 334,332, up (+4.45%) compared with the same week in 2025, while weekly Intermodal volume was 341,673, up (+3.78%) year over year. 10 of the AAR’s 11 major traffic categories posted year-over-year increases. The largest decrease came from Metallic Ores and Metals (-9.28%). The largest increase was Grain (+18.73%).

In the East, CSX’s total volumes were up (+5.50%), with the largest decrease coming from Grain (-7.32%), while the largest increase came from Metallic Ores and Metals (+11.16%). NS’s total volumes were up (+2.12%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+45.88%), while the largest decrease came from Nonmetallic Minerals (-6.26%).

In the West, BNSF’s total volumes were up (+8.21%), with the largest increase coming from Coal (+51.96%), while the largest decrease came from Metallic Ores and Metals (-7.29%). UP’s total volumes were up (+2.23%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+42.32%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-21.19%).

In Canada, CN’s total volumes were down (-5.98%), with the largest increase coming from Coal (+51.96%), while the largest decrease came from Metallic Ores and Metals (-35.65%). CPKCS’s total volumes were up (+13.63%), with the largest increase coming from Nonmetallic Minerals (+36.18%), while the largest decrease came from Other (-21.51%).

Source Data: AAR – PFL Analytics

North American Rig Count Summary

North American rig count was up by +3 rigs week-over-week. The US rig count was up by +3 rigs week-over-week, but down by -25 rigs year-over-year. The US currently has 551 active rigs. Canada’s rig count was unchanged week-over-week and up by +3 rigs year-over-year. Canada currently has 124 active rigs. Overall, year-over-year we are down by -22 rigs collectively.

We are watching a few things out there for you:

We Are Watching the BNSF

In a sign of true patriotism, the BNSF rolled out special locomotives to commemorate the United States’ upcoming 250th anniversary.

The Class 1 last week introduced three specially painted locomotives designed to mark the nation’s 250^th birthday on July 4.

Painted by Mid-America Car Inc. in Kansas City, Missouri, the locomotives sport red, white and blue colors and an America250 logo. They also are decorated with the words, “We the People,” and “Freedom and Liberty.” The locomotives will travel along BNSF’s 32,500-mile network for special events:

The Class 1’s history dates back to 1849 with the Aurora Branch Railroad in Illinois.

“Few institutions are woven into the fabric of America quite like the railroad, and BNSF is honored to celebrate our nation’s 250^th anniversary with these specially painted locomotives,” said BNSF president and CEO Katie Farmer.  We like this one, folks – some good news in these unsettled times – Go U.S.A, go!

We Are Watching Petroleum Carloads

The four-week rolling average of petroleum carloads carried on the six largest North American railroads rose to 29,206 from 28,820 which was an increase of +386 rail cars week-over-week. Canadian volumes were mixed. CPKC’s shipments were lower by -3.0% week-over-week, CN’s volumes were higher by +11.0% week-over-week. U.S. shipments were also mix. The CSX had the largest percentage decrease and was down by -7.0%. The NS had the largest percentage increase and was up by +19.0% week-over-week.

We Continue to Watch Our Strategic Petroleum Reserves

The Trump Administration announced on Monday of last week that it will loan 53.3 million barrels of crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to energy companies as part of an international effort to stabilize oil markets disrupted by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Nine companies, including Exxon Mobil, Trafigura, and Marathon Petroleum, accepted about 58% of the 92.5 million barrels the Department of Energy had offered last month.

The DOE has already loaned roughly 80 million barrels this spring and is aiming to release a total of 172 million barrels under a March agreement with more than 30 countries in the International Energy Agency to collectively release around 400 million barrels. The coordinated action is intended to offset supply disruptions and soaring prices caused by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of global oil supply normally passes.

IEA chief Fatih Birol described the conflict as the biggest energy crisis ever and said additional reserve releases remain possible. So far, member countries have released about 20% of available reserves.

Rising fuel prices have become a political concern ahead of the November midterm elections, with U.S. gasoline prices reaching an average of $4.52 per gallon, the highest level since 2022. The DOE said companies will repay the SPR loans in crude oil with premiums of up to 24%, arguing the program stabilizes markets without direct taxpayer cost. The SPR currently holds about 384 million barrels, equal to less than four days of global oil consumption.

We Continue to Watch Hormuz

As previously stated above, WTI closed on Friday of last week at $105.42 per barrel, up 4.4% on the day and roughly 11% on the week, as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed and the latest round of U.S. – Iran negotiations have collapsed.  The International Energy Agency’s May Oil Market Report, published on Wednesday of last week, put cumulative supply losses since February at more than 1 billion barrels with 14.4 million barrels per day of Gulf production shut in, and warned the global market will remain “materially undersupplied” through October even if shipping resumes next month.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration confirmed on Wednesday of last week that Hormuz crude and fuel flows fell by nearly 6 million barrels per day in the first quarter.  Crude tanker tonne-mile demand in April dropped to the lowest monthly total since November 2020. The Trump administration’s “Project Freedom” tanker escort program has moved a handful of vessels but is not changing the picture. President Trump told reporters last week that the ceasefire is on “massive life support.” On the U.S. side, the gasoline picture is now genuinely tight heading into the summer driving season. Inventories hit a 23-week low at 215.7 million barrels for the week ended May 8, with stocks down 13% since the war started in late February.

Gulf Coast CBOB has averaged $3.43 per gallon so far in May, a $1.40 per gallon jump from pre-war levels and the highest since June 2022. The national retail average hit $4.50 per gallon for the week ended May 11. U.S. gasoline exports surged to 1.05 million barrels per day last week, up 22% on the week and the highest May volume on record going back to 2016, while imports collapsed by 60% to 303,000 barrels per day. Energy Secretary Chris Wright went on Meet the Press on Sunday, May 10th asking refiners to shorten spring maintenance to keep more product moving. Asking, not telling, but a clear signal of how tight the system is.

For the rail thesis, the spreads still do not give us any meaningful crude-by-rail return. WCS Hardisty was $80.52 with WTI Houston at $106.92 on Friday of last week, implying a roughly $26 per barrel differential before transport. The unit train rate from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast is $16.94 per barrel. The math does not yet cross the sustained negative $18 basis hurdle, and even if it did, the structural points have not changed: not many 117J crude cars suitable for crude by rail are available, one-to-two-year build times is the norm, and with leasing companies and car owners demanding five-year lease commitments and with the class ones also echoing similar long term commitments it is a little bit of a hurdle for the producer to overcome.    For now PFL’s view is unchanged, crude by rail is not a swing component, but we could be in the beginning of another crude by rail cycle if current trends continue.  We are watching this one closely.

We Continue to Watch Left Wing Carney

Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith signed an implementation agreement in Calgary on Friday last week that, on paper, advances a West Coast bitumen pipeline of more than 1 million barrels per day. Alberta has committed to submit the project to the federal Major Projects Office by July 1, with Ottawa targeting designation as a “project of national interest” by October 1 and construction potentially starting as early as September 1, 2027.  In our opinion, this is not a very good deal for Alberta to sign and we are puzzled by the willingness of the Premier to sign such a one sided deal with the Left wing Prime Minister. Smith has agreed to a phased industrial carbon price of C$100 per tonne from 2027 through 2029, rising to C$140 per tonne by 2040. That is a real concession with a real cost to oil sands operators. What she got in return is a process with deadlines, not a pipeline.

There is no private sector proponent. There is no chosen route. British Columbia Premier David Eby and Energy Minister Adrian Dix went on the record Friday saying Ottawa is “rewarding bad behaviour” tied to the October 19 separation referendum, and that B.C. has $88 billion of shovel-ready projects getting nothing close to the same federal attention.  First Nations along the North Coast have already said they will not support any pipeline to tidewater “now or ever.” And the Pathways CCS project that the Oil Sands Alliance has been chasing for years, estimated at C$16.5 billion, was conspicuously absent from Friday’s announcement.

Carney got industrial carbon pricing certainty, an answer to the separation problem brewing in Alberta, and a national political headline. Smith got a process. Even on the optimistic timetable, this pipeline does not start construction for sixteen months and does not move a barrel before the back end of the decade. The egress problem in Alberta is now, not in 2030. The rail rate from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf coast on a unit train moved to $16.94 per barrel for June, up $1.54 on the week, and Trans Mountain ran at 96% capacity in April with chief executive Mark Maki publicly saying Canada needs another pipeline “somewhere.”

PFL has been beating this drum for two years. The Carney government finally moved off the dime but did he, by the time the pipeline gets built we will be over C$100 per MT for the tax alone pushing towards C$130 per MT, the deal Alberta signed Friday looks more like political theater than infrastructure. Smith has put a real carbon price on the table for a pipeline that may never get built. PFL will be watching to see whether a private sector proponent shows up, whether B.C. is brought into the room, and whether the Pathways CCS deal gets done. Until those three things happen, the egress story still belongs to the railroads.

We Continue to Watch BP

Two months into the lockout at BP’s 440,000 barrel per day Whiting refinery, the company and United Steelworkers Local 7-1 agreed on Wednesday of last week to return to the bargaining table , the first formal negotiations since BP locked out more than 800 hourly workers in mid-March.

The union went public Tuesday of last week accusing BP of stalling, saying the company had previously told the local it was “unavailable to meet for nearly two weeks” despite publicly claiming it wanted to bargain. BP has run the refinery on a replacement workforce throughout the lockout, which is now the longest at Whiting since the 101-day work stoppage in 2015. Whiting is the largest refinery in the Midwest and one of the largest single destinations in PADD 2 for Bakken light and Western Canadian heavy, processing close to 280,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude under normal operations.

The refinery continues to run, but every week the dispute increases the probability of an operational incident that pulls capacity offline at the worst possible moment for the Midwest gasoline and diesel markets. With Gulf coast gasoline stocks at 23-week lows and national retail prices at the highest since July 2022, the system has no slack to absorb a Whiting outage. PFL will be watching whether this week’s sessions produce a framework or just another round of recriminations.

We Are Watching the Surface Transportation Board

The procedural calendar on Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern’s amended merger application is closed. Public comments on completeness were due Friday May 8, applicants filed their reply on Tuesday of last week, and the Surface Transportation Board now has to decide whether the revised application meets the regulations to proceed to substantive review.  All four remaining Class I railroads filed against the application as incomplete. BNSF, Canadian National, Canadian Pacific Kansas City, and CSX each filed separate comments urging the STB to reject the revised application, in our opinion an extraordinary show of unity among competitors that rarely agree on anything.

BNSF’s May 8th filing called the amended application a set of “cosmetic changes to gloss over the serious and fundamental competition, pricing, and service concerns that were previously raised” and accused UP of “lowballing” projected market shares to the regulator while signaling higher shares to Wall Street.  CN said only one of the three deficiencies the Board identified in January has been meaningfully addressed, namely the complete merger agreement, and that the application still omits required market share data and St. Louis terminal control specifics. The Teamsters and the Coalition to Stop the Rail Merger remain in opposition.

UP and NS responded last Tuesday saying the updated application “is comprehensive and complete, and provides all the information” the regulator needs, repeating projections of $3.5 billion in annual shipper savings and 2.1 million truck conversions.  The 39% combined market share figure UP cites would put the new entity roughly on par with BNSF, although BNSF disputes the methodology.

The STB’s next move is the completeness ruling. If it accepts the application, a procedural schedule for substantive review follows and the multi-year clock begins in earnest. PFL has been watching this one for a long time. With the entire rest of the Class I universe on record against, the STB may have a path to bounce this back again. Stay tuned to PFL for further updates.

We Are Watching Rail Crime

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act on Tuesday of last week by a vote of 348-60, with 206 cosponsors split roughly evenly across both parties. The bill, H.R. 2853, now moves to the Senate.  The Association of American Railroads reports 75,000 rail theft incidents in 2025 with losses exceeding $200 million, more than a 50% year-over-year increase off a 2024 figure that was already up 40%. One in ten attempts result in an arrest.

These are not opportunistic crimes. Theft rings are cutting brake lines to stop trains in remote areas, using fraudulent shipping documents to redirect entire loads, and timing strikes around terminal congestion and modal handoffs. The geography is consistent: the Los Angeles to Inland Empire corridor reported more than $1 billion in stolen goods in 2024 alone, with Texas, Arizona, and Chicago’s rail yards as the other persistent hotspots. CargoNet reports strategic theft, the identity-fraud and document variant, has surged 1,500% since 2021.

CORCA puts the Department of Homeland Security in charge of a unified national response, establishes a coordination center inside Homeland Security Investigations, and provides grants and training to frontline law enforcement. The AAR, the Intermodal Association of North America, and the American Trucking Associations all endorsed the bill and are pushing the Senate to move quickly.

Every stolen load is a service failure on top of the insurance and security cost. The bill in the Senate is progress, but it is not law yet, and until it is, the jurisdictional gaps these criminal networks exploit are still wide open. PFL will be watching how quickly the Senate moves.

We Are Watching The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous 9-0 decision Thursday in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC that every company arranging freight, including the 3PLs and freight forwarders who book the truck legs of intermodal moves, needs to understand.  Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the opinion, with a concurrence by Justice Kavanaugh joined by Justice Alito. The Seventh Circuit was reversed.

The background: a 2017 Illinois highway accident left Shawn Montgomery without his leg after a Caribe Transport truck, hired by freight broker C.H. Robinson, struck him on the shoulder. Caribe Transport had a “conditional” safety rating from federal regulators when Robinson booked it. Montgomery sued Robinson for negligent hiring. Lower courts threw the case out under the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, which pre-empts state laws related to a broker’s price, route, or service. The Supreme Court held that the FAAAA’s safety exception, which preserves a state’s regulatory authority “with respect to motor vehicles,” saves negligent-hiring claims against brokers from preemption. The federal preemption shield that brokers have used since the Seventh Circuit’s 2023 Ye v. GlobalTranz decision is gone. The ruling is effective immediately in all fifty states.

The opinion is written about brokers because the defendant was a broker, but the logic extends to anyone in the supply chain who selects a carrier and has access to publicly available safety data.  3PLs and freight forwarders arranging the drayage and truck legs of intermodal rail moves now have direct exposure if they book carriers with FMCSA red flags. Pure rail-to-rail interchanges are outside the scope, since the statute targets motor vehicles, but the moment a truck enters the move, the duty of ordinary care in carrier selection attaches. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence emphasized that brokers who select reputable carriers should still be able to defeat these cases. Reasonable vetting is the defense.

Plaintiff’s firms have been waiting for this decision for years and have cases ready to file. Insurance costs for brokers and 3PLs without a solid carrier vetting process are going to rise. PFL’s customers who use 3PLs to book the truck portions of their moves should be asking those providers how they document carrier safety reviews. That question is now a real one.

We Are Watching Key Economic Indicators

Producer Price Index 

In April 2026, the Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.1% month-over-month, slowing further from the 0.2% increase in March and signaling continued moderation in upstream price pressures. Core PPI (final demand less foods, energy, and trade services) increased 0.2% month over month, matching March’s pace. The monthly increase was driven primarily by services, which rose 0.2%, while goods were relatively flat. Within goods, food prices posted modest gains while energy prices declined, and goods less foods and energy increased slightly, indicating stable but subdued core goods inflation. Within services, trade margins softened somewhat, transportation and warehousing were mixed, and services less trade, transportation, and warehousing remained moderate, suggesting broader services inflation continued to cool gradually.

In April 2026, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.2% month-over-month, easing from March’s 0.3% gain, and was up approximately 2.6% year over year. Core CPI (all items less food and energy) rose 0.2% month-over-month and was up approximately 2.8% year-over-year. Shelter remained one of the primary contributors to the monthly increase, though its pace continued to moderate. Food prices increased modestly, while energy prices declined, contributing to a softer headline figure compared to the prior month.

Unemployment Rate 

On May 8, 2026, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 162,000 in April 2026, reflecting continued but moderating hiring growth following March’s gain.

According to the BLS, prior months’ payroll figures were revised modestly lower, reinforcing evidence of a gradually cooling labor market. The official unemployment rate remained at 4.3% in April, unchanged from March, suggesting labor market conditions stabilized further despite softer hiring momentum. The good news in the report was the continued decline in government employment and another increase in manufacturing jobs, a trend that we will hopefully see continue.

The good news is, government jobs continue to fall and the private sector continues to add jobs on a net basis.  Private sector jobs were up 123,000 jobs month over month while the Government sector jobs were down 8,000 jobs month-over-month.  Since President Trump effectively took control of the White House in January of 2025 we have seen the addition of 641,000 Private sector jobs and the elimination of 221,000 Government jobs.

Industrial Output and Capacity Utilization

Manufacturing accounts for approximately 75% of total output. Manufacturing output in April declined 0.2% from March 2026, following a 0.1% decline in March.

Capacity utilization is a measure of how fully firms are using machinery and equipment. Capacity utilization decreased by 0.3% from March in April.

Lease Bids

• 100, 21.9K 117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in the Midwest. For use in CO2 service. Period: 6 months.
• 30-50, 30K 117J Tanks located off of NS or CSX in the Northeast. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year.
• 20-50, 4000-5000 Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in Houston. For use in Urea, Potash, and  Ammonium Sulfate service. Period: 6-12 Months.
• 200, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of CSX or NS in Ohio. For use in Propylene service. Period: 18 Months.
• 30-50, 25.5K DOT 111 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in various locations. For use in Asphalt service. Period: 1-3 Years.
• 40, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP in Eunice, LA. For use in Propane service. Period: 1 Year.
• 40, 29K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in the Midwest. For use in Veg Oil service. Period: 5 Year.
• 70, 30K DOT 117 Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Ohio. For use in Diesel service. Period: 3 months.
• 100, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in Texas. For use in Propane service. Period: 6 Months.
• 20, DOT 117J Tanks located off of NS, CSX, CN, or CPKC in various locations. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year. Need gauge rods.
• 50, 30K DOT 117J Tanks located off of CP or CN in Canada. For use in Jet Fuel service. Period: 1 Year.
• 300, 5200CF Covered Hoppers located off of CP or CM in Canada. For use in Petcoke service. Period: 3 Year.
• 10, 30K 117J Tanks located off of BNSF in Canada. For use in Propane or Butane service. Period: 3 Year.

Sales Bids

• 28, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in Texas. For use in Cement service. Cement Gates needed.
• 20, 17K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in corn syrup service.
• 120, Various Open-Top Aluminum Rotary Gondolas located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in Sulphur service. Built 2004 or later.
• 30, 29K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in Chicago. For use in Veg Oil service.

Lease Offers

• 21, 6351 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 29, 6500 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 50, 20K DOT117J Tanks located off of all class 1s in Moving. Last used in styrene.
• 29, 25.5K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in Texas. Cars are currently clean.
• 200, 340W DOT 112J Tanks located off of all class 1s in Multiple Locations. Last used in propane and butane. Cars are currently clean.
• 15, 6200CF Covered Hoppers located off of all class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 30, 6500CF Covered Hoppers located off of all class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 6, 21K Stainless Steel Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in surfactant. Cars are currently clean.
• 100, 28.4K DOT 117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in Beaumont, TX. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in the South. Last used in ethanol.
• 30, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable jet fuel.
• 80, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable diesel.
• 10, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF in Washington. Last used in renewable naphtha.
• 10, 29K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gasoline additive. Coiled and Insulated.
• 39, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Iowa. Last used in diesel.
• 99, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in diesel.
• 1, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in naphtha.
• 2, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in giesel.
• 1, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gas blend stock.
• 3, 30K DOT 117R Tanks located off of BNSF and UP in Texas. Last used in gasoline.
• 36, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of CPKC in Texas. Last used in diesel.
• 6, 31K CPC1232 Tanks located off of CPKC in Texas. Last used in naphtha.

Sales Offers

• 81, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BNSF in TX. Requal Due in 2025.
• 35, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BNSF in the Midwest. Last used in Sand.
• 25, 30K 117J Tanks located off of CSX in Jackson, TN. Last used in Fuels. Newly Requalified.

Call PFL today to discuss your needs and our availability and market reach. Whether you are looking to lease cars, lease out cars, buy cars, or sell cars call PFL today at 239-390-2885

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The post PFL Railcar Report 5-18-2026 appeared first on PFL Petroleum Services LTD.

Jobs Update

• Initial jobless claims seasonally adjusted for the week ending May 2, 2026 came in at 200,000, versus the adjusted number of 190,000 people from the week prior, up 10,000 people week over week.

• Continuing jobless claims came in at 1,776,000, versus the adjusted number of 1,776,000 people from the week prior, flat week over week.

Stocks closed higher on Friday of last week and higher week-over-week

The DOW closed higher on Friday of last week, up 12.19 points (0.02%), closing out the week at 49,609.16, up 109.89 points week-over-week. The S&P 500 closed higher on Friday of last week, up 61.82 points (0.84%), and closed out the week at 7,398.93, up 168.81 points week-over-week. The NASDAQ closed higher on Friday of last week, up 440.88 points (1.71%), and closed out the week at 26,247.08, up 1,132.64 points week-over-week.

In overnight trading, DOW futures traded lower and are expected to open at 49,665 this morning, down 26 points from Friday’s close.

Crude oil closed higher on Friday of last week and lower week-over-week

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed up $0.61 per barrel (0.6%), to close at $95.42 on Friday of last week, but down $6.52 week-over-week. Brent crude closed up $1.23 per barrel (1.2%), to close at $101.29, but down $6.88 week-over-week. 

One Exchange WCS (Western Canadian Select) for June delivery settled on Friday of last week at US$15.60 below the WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average). The implied value was US$74.22 per barrel. 

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 2.3 million barrels week-over-week. At 457.2 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are 1% above the five-year average for this time of year. 

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 2.5 million barrels week-over-week and are 4% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 1.3 million barrels week-over-week and are 11% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 1.3 million barrels week-over-week and are 56% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane prices closed at 83.9 cents per gallon on Friday of last week, up 4.6 cents per gallon week-over-week, but down 1.7 cents per gallon year-over-year.

Overall, total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 5.9 million barrels week-over-week during the week ending May 1, 2026.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.5 million barrels per day during the week ending May 1, 2026, a decrease of 273,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 5.6 million barrels per day, 2.4% less than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) averaged 755,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 123,000 barrels per day during the week ending May 1, 2026.

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 4.75 million barrels per day during the week ending May 1, 2026, a decrease of 1.688 million barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil exports averaged 5.303 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16 million barrels per day during the week ending May 1, 2026, which was 42,000 barrels per day less week-over-week.

WTI is poised to open at $97.69, up $2.27 per barrel from Friday’s close.

North American Rail Traffic

Week Ending May 6, 2026:

Total North American weekly rail volumes were up (+3.37%) in week 19, compared with the same week last year. Total Carloads for the week ending May 6, 2026 were 341,370, up (+3.95%) compared with the same week in 2025, while weekly Intermodal volume was 344,184, up (+2.81%) year over year. 9 of the AAR’s 11 major traffic categories posted year-over-year increases. The largest decrease came from Forest Products (-12.25%). The largest increase was Grain (+14.93%).

In the East, CSX’s total volumes were up (+4.74%), with the largest decrease coming from Motor Vehicles and Parts (-3.40%), while the largest increase came from Other (+21.65%). NS’s total volumes were up (+4.01%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+28.92%), while the largest decrease came from Grain (-5.23%).

In the West, BNSF’s total volumes were up (+7.49%), with the largest increase coming from Metallic Ores and Metals (+24.76%), while the largest decrease came from Chemicals (-11.03%). UP’s total volumes were up (+1.67%), with the largest increase coming from Nonmetallic Minerals (+20.33%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-24.21%).

In Canada, CN’s total volumes were up (+4.58%), with the largest increase coming from Coal (+24.18%), while the largest decrease came from Other (-25.86%). CPKCS’s total volumes were down (-16.61%), with the largest increase coming from Nonmetallic Minerals (+17.28%), while the largest decrease came from Forest Products (-69.25%).

Source Data: AAR – PFL Analytics

North American Rig Count Summary

North American rig count was up by +2 rigs week-over-week. The US rig count was up by +1 rig week-over-week, but down by -30 rigs year-over-year. The US currently has 548 active rigs. Canada’s rig count was up by +1 rig week-over-week and up by +10 rigs year-over-year. Canada currently has 124 active rigs. Overall, year-over-year we are down by -20 rigs collectively.

We are watching a few things out there for you:

We are Watching Petroleum Carloads

 The four-week rolling average of petroleum carloads carried on the six largest North American railroads fell to 28,820 from 28,934 which was a decrease of -114 rail cars week-over-week. Canadian volumes were mixed. CN’s shipments were lower by -5.0% week-over-week, CPKC’s volumes were higher by +7.0% week-over-week. U.S. shipments were also mix. The NS had the largest percentage decrease and was down by -10.0%. The CSX had the largest percentage increase and was up by +11.0% week-over-week.

We Continue to watch our Strategic Petroleum Reserves

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) declined from 415.442 million barrels reported on March 20, 2026, to 392.700 million barrels reported on May 1, 2026, representing a total drawdown of approximately 22.742 million barrels over the six-week period. Current inventory levels are now approaching the late-2024 low of 392.531 million barrels reported in December 2024. The recent decline equates to an average release rate of roughly 3.79 million barrels per week, a draw down of approximately 542,000 barrels per day, as strategic reserves continue supplementing global crude supplies amid disruptions tied to the Strait of Hormuz crisis.

The Trump Administration announced plans to begin refilling the SPR shortly after taking office in January 2025 after the Biden Administration drew down our reserves to depress gas prices ahead of the Presidential election. Meaningful replenishment efforts did not begin until late 2025, when the Department of Energy awarded contracts for crude oil deliveries into the reserve. Refill activity remained gradual due to funding limitations and ongoing maintenance at SPR storage sites before renewed emergency drawdowns tied to Middle East supply disruptions began in March 2026.

From December 2024 to March 20, 2026 the Strategic Petroleum Reserve increased by approximately 22.9 million barrels before the recent Hormuz-related supply disruptions reversed much of those gains.  If you are worried about running out of crude in the nation’s reserves – don’t worry, we will not run out at the current draw rates until sometime in 2028.

We Are Watching Cenovus

Cenovus President and Chief Executive Jon McKenzie, had some strong words on the company’s first quarter earnings call on Thursday of last week directed toward Canadian Prime Minister Mark Caney’s left wing Liberal Government. The current geopolitical environment, with Hormuz still effectively closed and global refiners scrambling for supply, presents Canada with another window to grow oilsands production. McKenzie said that window is being put at risk by Ottawa. “The national dialogue on further development of the oilsands has been myopically focused on the climate agenda and climate policy and has ignored a multitude of benefits that responsible oilsands development has brought to this country.”

It is rare to see a sitting Canadian oilsands chief executive speak this directly about federal energy policy. McKenzie tied the criticism to competitiveness, noting the world needs affordable, abundant, reliable energy from all sources, and that Canada is at risk of squandering a generational opportunity while customers in China and India are knocking on the door. The Carney government has done nothing material on the major projects file since the November carbon pricing reset, and the West Coast pipeline corridor remains a press release rather than a project.

The cost of policy drift is now showing up in capital budgets. Canadian Natural Resources trimmed its 2026 capital spending by C$310 million by deferring engineering work on the C$8.25 billion Jackpine mine expansion, citing “a lack of finalization relating to carbon pricing and methane” that “creates uncertainty and economic burden for long-term growth investments.” That is real Canadian capital sitting on the sidelines waiting for federal clarity. For the rail car industry, the takeaway is straightforward. At some point in the not so distant future rail may just make up this short fall in pipe capacity but involves long term commitments from producers – industry and refiners south of the border.

We Are Watching the Enbridge

Enbridge moved 3.17 million barrels per day on the Mainline in the first quarter, the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2023. The company also rejected 14% of heavy crude nominations for May flow, a clear signal that the system is full. Mainline Optimization Phase 1 will add 150,000 barrels per day in 2027, Phase 2 adds another 250,000 barrels per day by 2028, and the Express system gains 30,000 barrels per day on top of that. None of those barrels arrive in time to relieve current apportionment.

On the diluent side, the Canada Energy Regulator approved Enbridge’s request to expand Southern Lights on Tuesday of last week, lifting capacity from 198,000 to 240,000 barrels per day. More diluent flowing north into Edmonton is a leading indicator of more diluted bitumen flowing south. Enbridge said the request was driven directly by customer demand for imported condensate, and the company expects no system modifications to support the higher capacity. The 21% expansion follows last year’s bump from 180,000 to 198,000 barrels per day, meaning Southern Lights capacity has grown by a third in less than 18 months.

We Are Watching US Crude Exports

U.S. crude exports hit an all-time monthly high of 5.1 million barrels per day in April, up more than 30% from March. The EIA weekly series topped out at 6.4 million barrels per day for the week ended April 24. Most of the surge was a relief valve for European refiners scrambling to replace Middle East Production. This is an inventory drawdown, not a supply response.

However, infrastructure responses are starting to show. On Tuesday of last week, Sentinel Midstream said it has cleared its final federal approvals for Texas GulfLink, an offshore terminal 30 miles west of Freeport that can fully load a 2-million-barrel VLCC per day. Construction will start immediately and commercial operations target the fourth quarter of 2028. The project is being underpinned by ¥330 billion (about $2.1 billion) in Japanese funding committed under the July 2025 trade deal. GulfLink is the only one of four proposed US offshore VLCC terminals to actually break ground. Enterprise’s competing SPOT permit is sitting unsanctioned because the company has cited anemic shipper interest. The Iran war has solved Sentinel’s anchor shipper problem.

Gibson Energy guided to record throughputs at South Texas Gateway in the second quarter, pushing 1 million barrels per day in May and June. Chief executive Curtis Philippon said “virtually all” customers are exercising their guaranteed loading windows. The Wink-to-Gateway integration coming online in the third quarter will let Permian and Eagle Ford volumes flow concurrently into the dock. None of this throughput is moving by rail, but every additional pipeline barrel pulled south puts more pressure on the egress puzzle in Western Canada and the Bakken. The Permian is sucking U.S. crude pipelines south. That is constructive for the rail option further north.

We Are Watching Butane

U.S. butane exports hit an all-time monthly high of 689,000 barrels per day, or 1.9 million tonnes, in April. That blew past the previous record set in May 2025 during the China trade rerouting. Mont Belvieu butane prices climbed to a 15-month high last Tuesday at 122.375 cents per gallon, the highest mark since January 2025. The Hormuz blockade is trapping roughly 30% of global LPG supply, and Asian buyers have pivoted hard to U.S. butane as the alternative to Middle Eastern butane-heavy cargoes.

India was the biggest buyer in April at 247,000 tonnes, with Morocco at 231,000, China at 162,000, and Korea at 134,000. The pivot is showing up in spot economics. Mideast LPG cargoes are split roughly evenly between propane and butane, while US export terminals are configured to load mostly propane. The result is that spot terminal fees for split cargoes are now sitting at a 10-cent-per-gallon or larger premium to full propane loadings, even with global supplies of both products tight. EPA also issued a national Reid vapor pressure waiver in March allowing higher-volatility summer gasoline, which is propping up domestic butane blend demand at the same time export demand is screaming.

Targa flagged on its earnings call last week that it expects record LPG exports in the second quarter driven by butane-heavy loads, with Galena Park back to full operation after its March compressor outage. The 175,000 barrel per day terminal is undergoing an expansion that will lift capacity to 625,000 barrels per day in the third quarter of 2027. Pressure car demand at midstream loading hubs and inland origin points is moving with this. Anyone who has tried to source pressure cars on short notice over the past year already knows the answer. PFL works with the operators that have the cars, the lease structure, and the visibility into where the equipment actually is. Call PFL at 239-390-2885 if you have LPG moves coming up that need fleet attention. 

We Are Watching Heavy Haul

The energy buildout underway across the U.S. is creating a real shortage of the specialized rail equipment needed to move the heavy components into it. LNG export terminals, natural gas power plants, data centers, and grid upgrades all share the same problem: they require power transformers, gas turbines, heat exchangers, and pressure vessels that cannot move on a standard flatcar. Heavy depressed-center cars and Schnabel cars are the answer, and the pool is small.

Power transformers are the tightest piece of the puzzle. Manufacturing lead times run in years, not months, and the cars that haul them are being booked months in advance. The Hormuz disruption has accelerated U.S. LNG project timelines, which has accelerated demand for project cargo equipment, which has tightened an already tight specialty fleet. Contractors on these projects are being told to lock in heavy-haul rail equipment at the engineering stage rather than waiting for the equipment to arrive at the plant gate.

Some shippers caught short have started turning to truck and barge to fill the gaps. That works on certain lanes for certain components. It does not work for a 400-tonne transformer. The projects driving the demand are not slowing down, and the equipment to move them does not get built on a quarterly cycle. For the broader rail car market, the heavy-haul squeeze is a useful reminder that capacity discipline cuts both ways. Specialty fleets that took years to build cannot be replaced in months when demand turns.  PFL is watching this one closely and willing to work with shippers that require speciality designs. 

We Are Watching the Surface Transportation Board

The Surface Transportation Board on Friday of last week finalized rules requiring the six largest North American Class I railroads to publish two new weekly service metrics starting July 1. The first measures original estimated time of arrival, or OETA, flagging the percentage of weekly shipments that reach destination no later than 24 hours after the carrier’s own dispatch target. The second tracks the carrier’s success at picking up and dropping off cars at origin and destination, the so-called “spots and pulls” metric. The board first put the industry on notice it was coming in September, and it landed largely as expected.

The rules apply to manifest service only. Unit trains and intermodal are exempt, which is the right call given those flows already run on dedicated cycles. The STB framed the move as an effort to address shipper complaints that unpredictable rail service has become a wild card in supply chains, and the board noted Class I carriers already track most of the underlying data internally. The compliance burden should be modest. The transparency burden is another matter.

The shippers that have been quietly maintaining oversized private fleets to absorb Class I service variability now have data they can put on the table in rate negotiations. Carriers that have been performing inconsistently on manifest service are about to find out what that looks like in print. In our opinion, this is a meaningful win for shippers and a small but real check on Class I service drift, and it lands as the UP-NS proceeding is forcing the same competition questions back into the open.   PFL is seeing velocity increasing especially for unit car train service.  PFL will be watching the first OETA reports in July with interest – stay tuned to PFL for further updates.

We Are Watching the UP and NS

The comment window on the revised UP-NS merger application has closed. UP and NS now have until tomorrow (May 12) to respond, after which the STB has 30 days to decide whether the application is complete. The walk-away clause that triggered the original rejection is now in the public record. UP will tolerate up to $750 million in conditions imposed by the STB before the deal can be reconsidered, and pulling out triggers a $2.5 billion breakup fee owed to Norfolk Southern. The only structural condition UP has signaled it will accept is a divestiture of one of the two duplicate Kansas City to St. Louis routes.

If the STB rules the application complete, the substantive review is expected to run well into 2027, against a hard merger deadline of January 28, 2028. Stop the Rail Merger Coalition members filed extensively into the comment window and are expected to push hard on trackage rights and divestiture conditions that UP has already said it will not accept. The board now has to decide whether to approve a deal on UP’s terms, or push for the kind of conditions that put the $2.5 billion breakup fee in play. PFL continues to track this one closely.

We Are Watching Key Economic Indicators

Purchasing Manager Index (“PMI”)

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) releases two PMI reports – one covering manufacturing and the other covering services. These reports are based on surveys of supply managers across the country and track changes in business activity. A reading above 50% on the index indicates expansion, while a reading below 50% signifies contraction, with a faster pace of change the farther the reading is from 50.

The Manufacturing PMI in April 2026 was 52.7%, unchanged from March’s 52.7% reading and marking the fourth consecutive month in expansion territory following an extended period of contraction. Manufacturing activity continued to be supported by growth in new orders and production, although employment remained in contraction territory.

On the Services PMI side, the most recent reading is 53.6% (April 2026), down slightly from 54.0% in March but still indicating continued expansion in the services sector. Business activity remained solid, though new orders slowed compared to the prior month.

Lease Bids

• 100, 21.9K 117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Midwest. For use in CO2 service. Period: 6 months.
• 30-50, 30K 117J Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Northeast. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year.
• 20-50, 4000-5000 Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Houston. For use in Urea, Potash, Ammonium Sulfate service. Period: 6-12 Months.
• 200, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of CSX or NS in Ohio. For use in Propylene service. Period: 18 Months.
• 30-50, 25.5K DOT 111 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Anywhere. For use in Asphalt service. Period: 1-3 Years.
• 40, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP in Eunice, LA. For use in Propane service. Period: 1 Year.
• 40, 29K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Midwest. For use in Veg Oil service. Period: 5 Year.
• 70, 30K DOT 117 Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Ohio. For use in Diesel service. Period: 3 months.
• 100, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. For use in Propane service. Period: 6 Months.
• 20, DOT 117J Tanks located off of NS, CSX, CN, or CPKC in Various. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year. Need gauge rods.
• 50, 30K DOT 117J Tanks located off of CP or CN in Canada. For use in Jet Fuel service. Period: 1 Year.

Sales Bids

• 28, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP BN in Texas. For use in Cement service. Cement Gates needed.
• 20, 17K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in corn syrup service.
• 120, Various Open-Top Aluminum Rotary Gondolas located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in Sulphur service. Built 2004 or later.
• 30, 29K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in Chicago. For use in Veg Oil service.

Lease Offers

• 106, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 20, 31.8K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 86, 29K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline. Coiled and Insulated.
• 21, 6351 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 29, 6500 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 50, 20K DOT117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Moving. Last used in Styrene.
• 29, 25.5K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Cars are currently clean. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Corpus Christie. Last used in Diesel.
• 200, 340W DOT 112J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Multiple Locations. Last used in Propane and Butane. Cars are currently clean.
• 15, 6200CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 30, 6500CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 24, 21K Stainless Steel Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in SULFACTANT. Cars are currently clean.
• 34, 30K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in Veg Oil. Cars are currently clean.
• 117, 30K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline.
• 100, 28.4K DOT 117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Beaumont, TX. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in the South. Last used in Ethanol.

Sales Offers

• 81, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in TX. Last used in Multiple. Requal Due in 2025.
• 35, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Midwest. Last used in Sand.
• 25, 30K 117J Tanks located off of CSX in Jackson, TN. Last used in Fuels. Newly Requalified.

Call PFL today to discuss your needs and our availability and market reach. Whether you are looking to lease cars, lease out cars, buy cars, or sell cars call PFL today at 239-390-2885

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Jobs Update

• Initial jobless claims seasonally adjusted for the week ending April 25, 2026 came in at 189,000, versus the adjusted number of 215,000 people from the week prior, down 26,000 people week over week.

• Continuing jobless claims came in at 1,785,000, versus the adjusted number of 1,808,000 people from the week prior, down 23,000 week-over-week.

Stocks closed mixed on Friday of last week and higher week-over-week

The DOW closed lower on Friday of last week, down -152.87 points (-0.31%), closing out the week at 49,499.27, up 268.56 points week-over-week. The S&P 500 closed higher on Friday of last week, up 21.11 points (0.29%), and closed out the week at 7,230.12, up 65.04 points week-over-week. The NASDAQ closed higher on Friday of last week, up 222.13 points (0.89%), and closed out the week at 25,114.44, up 277.84 points week-over-week.

In overnight trading, DOW futures traded lower and are expected to open at 49,395 this morning, down -251 points from Friday’s close.

Crude oil closed lower on Friday of last week, but higher week-over-week

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed down -$3.13 per barrel (-3%), to close at $101.94 on Friday of last week, but up $7.54 per barrel week-over-week. Brent crude closed down -$2.33 per barrel (-2%), to close at $108.17 per barrel, but up $2.84 per barrel week-over-week. 

One Exchange WCS (Western Canadian Select) for June delivery settled on Friday of last week at US$15.60 below the WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average). The implied value was US$81.65 per barrel.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 6.2 million barrels week-over-week. At 459.5 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are 1% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 6.1 million barrels week-over-week and are 2% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 4.5 million barrels week-over-week and are 11% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 1.1 million barrels week-over-week and are 62% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane prices closed at 79.3 cents per gallon on Friday of last week, up 3.2 cents per gallon week-over-week, but down 6.3 cents year-over-year.

Overall, total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 17.0 million barrels week-over-week during the week ending April 24, 2026.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.8 million barrels per day during the week ending April 24, 2026, a decrease of 329,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 5.9 million barrels per day, 0.7% more than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) averaged 344,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 126,000 barrels per day during the week ending April 24, 2026.

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 6.438 million barrels per day during the week ending April 30, 2026, an increase of 1.640 million barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil exports averaged 5.153 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.1 million barrels per day during the week ending April 24, 2026, which was 85,000 barrels per day more week-over-week.

WTI is poised to open at $105.79, up $3.85 per barrel from Friday’s close.

North American Rail Traffic

Week Ending April 29, 2026:

Total North American weekly rail volumes were up (+1.38%) in week 18, compared with the same week last year. Total Carloads for the week ending April 29, 2026 were 338,550, up (+0.03%) compared with the same week in 2025, while weekly Intermodal volume was 339,419, up (+2.77%) year over year. 6 of the AAR’s 11 major traffic categories posted year-over-year increases. The largest decrease came from Forest Products (-15.01%). The largest increase was Motor Vehicles and Parts (+14.90%).

In the East, CSX’s total volumes were up (+5.87%), with the largest decrease coming from Metallic Ores and Metals (-16.84%), while the largest increase came from Other (+17.58%). NS’s total volumes were up (+5.91%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+22.57%), while the largest decrease came from Forest Products (-9.66%).

In the West, BNSF’s total volumes were up (+3.98%), with the largest increase coming from Motor Vehicles and Parts (+12.59%), while the largest decrease came from Other (-12.54%). UP’s total volumes were down (-0.55%), with the largest increase coming from Motor Vehicles and Parts (+26.72%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-22.78%).

In Canada, CN’s total volumes were down (-5.71%), with the largest increase coming from Motor Vehicles and Parts (+37.01%), while the largest decrease came from Intermodal Units (-16.80%). CPKCS’s total volumes were down (-23.68%), with the largest increase coming from Nonmetallic Minerals (+20.95%), while the largest decrease came from Forest Products (-67.01%).

Source Data: AAR – PFL Analytics

North American Rig Count Summary

North American rig count was down by -4 rigs week-over-week. U.S. rig count was up by +3 rigs week-over-week, but down by -37 rigs year-over-year. The U.S. currently has 547 active rigs. Canada’s rig count was down by -7 rigs week-over-week but up by +3 rigs year-over-year. Canada currently has 123 active rigs. Overall, year-over-year we are down by -34 rigs collectively.

International rig count which is reported monthly was down by -22 rigs month-over-month and down by -51 rigs year-over-year. Internationally there are 1036 active rigs.

We are watching a few things out there for you:

We Are Watching the UP and NS

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern submitted their amended $85 billion merger application to the Surface Transportation Board on Thursday of last week, four months after the board rejected the initial December filing as incomplete. The revised application runs more than 7,000 pages and is the first in rail merger history to use 100% actual traffic data from all six North American Class Is rather than STB sample data. The STB now has 30 days to determine whether the filing is complete; comments on completeness are due May 8th. UP CEO Jim Vena said the deeper analysis reinforces the public-benefit case. NS President, Mark George, framed it as being fundamentally about growth.

UP and NS are projecting 2.1 million trucks diverted from highway to rail and roughly $3.5 billion per year in shipper cost savings if the merger goes through. The amended filing also commits the railroads to divest control of the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, the 170-mile short line where UP holds 42.84% and NS holds 14.29%. The TRRA divestment is structured to address concerns the original filing did not adequately handle competitive access in St. Louis.

The day before the filing, BNSF and CPKC went public with the Stop the Rail Merger Coalition alongside the American Chemistry Council, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Teamsters Rail Conference, the Alliance for Chemical Distribution, the National Industrial Transportation League, and the Vinyl Institute. A McLaughlin & Associates poll commissioned by the coalition found 71% of Americans oppose the merger after learning about its impacts and 68% believe the merged carrier would keep the cost savings rather than pass them through. CN’s response to the refile was sharper than the field, calling the failure to remedy competitive harms “fatal” to the application and noting that the areas of overlap are more extensive than the applicants identify. BNSF CEO, Katie Farmer, was direct in calling it a Wall Street deal rather than a customer-driven one.

For the tank car market, the merger is now in its substantive review phase. Comment windows open over the next several months, and a substantive STB decision is unlikely before late 2027. Anyone running long-tail equipment commitments through corridors that touch the Eastern half of the network needs to be modeling both outcomes. 

We are Watching Petroleum Carloads

 The four-week rolling average of petroleum carloads carried on the six largest North American railroads fell to 28,934 from 29,171 which was a decrease of -237 rail cars week-over-week. Canadian volumes were lower. CN’s shipments were lower by -4.0% week-over-week, CPKC’s volumes were lower by -5.0% week-over-week. U.S. shipments were mostly lower. The UP had the largest percentage decrease and was down by -5.0%. The NS was the sole gainer and was up by +2.0% week-over-week.

We Are Watching Our Strategic Petroleum Reserves

On Thursday of last week The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for an emergency exchange of up to 92.5-million-barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The solicitation opens competitive bidding, continuing DOE’s execution of President Trump’s swift 172-million-barrel release as part of a coordinated 400-million-barrel action by International Energy Agency (IEA) member nations’ strategic reserves.

In a press release “Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department has executed a historic, record-speed series of SPR exchange solicitations—the largest in the Reserve’s 50-year history, moving critical crude oil supplies quickly to market to address short-term oil flow disruptions and strengthen energy security for the United States and its allies.”

The crude oil will originate from the SPR’s Bayou Choctaw, Bryan Mound, Big Hill, and West Hackberry sites. This action builds on the Department’s three previous emergency exchange RFPs, which together quickly awarded approximately 80 million barrels across two completed exchanges. DOE’s earlier exchanges demonstrated the SPR’s ability to rapidly deliver crude oil under emergency authorities while securing a 24 percent premium in returned crude oil barrels—growing the reserve at no cost to American taxpayers.

Under DOE’s exchange authority, participating companies will return the borrowed 92.5-million-barrels of crude with additional premium barrels, ensuring the SPR grows beyond current levels while delivering immediate supply to refiners and global oil markets.  Bids under the New Exchange are due today at 11:00 AM CST.  Bottom line – we are pulling hard from storage right now, folks, see below:

We Are Watching California

The poor people of California are getting whacked right now due to bad left wing State policies.  The price of RIN’s and LCFS credits have soared and have added costs to what are already high gasoline and diesel prices at the pump.

On Friday of last week, LCFS credits in California closed at $69.50 per MT, up $3.00 per MT week-over-week. D4 RIN’s closed at $2.00 per RIN, up 11 cents per RIN week-over-week. D6 RINs closed at $1.97 per RIN, up 13 cents per RIN week-over-week.

In addition, California lost 17% of their refining capacity over the past year with Phillips 66 closure of its 139,000 barrel per day Los Angeles refinery and Valero’s 145,000 barrel per day closure of its Benicia complex.  Bottom line for California is that they are importing 129,000 barrels per day of gasoline alone and paying significant premiums to get the product to market as countries are rationing refined fuels in the wake of the ongoing conflict in the middle east.

On April 20th, Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan announced the advancement of the Western Gateway Pipeline (Western Gateway), a proposed refined products pipeline system, following a successful second open season that secured long-term shipper commitments sufficient to move the project forward, subject to the execution of definitive transportation service agreements, joint venture agreements, and respective board approvals.

The Western Gateway will connect Midwest and Gulf Coast refinery supply to Phoenix, Arizona and California markets with connectivity to Las Vegas, Nevada via Kinder Morgan’s CALNEV Pipeline. The Western Gateway Pipeline will consist of a new-build pipeline from Borger, Texas to Phoenix, Arizona, combined with Kinder Morgan’s existing SFPP, L.P. pipeline from Colton, California to Phoenix, Arizona, which will be reversed to enable east to west product flows into California. The Western Gateway Pipeline will be fed from Midwest and Gulf Coast supplies connected to Borger, Texas. The Gold Pipeline, operated by Phillips 66, which currently flows from Borger to St. Louis, will be reversed to enable refined products from Midwest and Gulf Coast refineries to flow toward Borger and supply the Western Gateway Pipeline.

The project is targeting an in-service date of mid-2029.

Proposed System Map

Source: Kinder Morgan – PFL Analytics

We Are Watching Bridger

Last Thursday President Trump signed the cross-border permit authorizing the Bridger Pipeline / South Bow project we have been tracking, a 647-mile, 36-inch, 550,000 b/d line running from the Canada-US border in Phillips County, Montana to a crude terminal at Guernsey, Wyoming. Bridger is designed to scale to 1.13 million barrels per day with additional pump stations, which would lift Canadian crude exports to the U.S. by more than 12% at full build-out. Bridger executive partner Tad True called the permit one step closer to reality. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took a victory lap. White House staff secretary Will Scharf called it a long-term energy dominance and security win. Canadian Energy Minister Tim Hodgson framed it the same way.

The permit is a milestone, not a green light. South Bow’s Prairie Connector concept feeds Bridger from Hardisty using existing approved corridors and pipe that has been sitting idle in Alberta and Saskatchewan since Keystone XL was cancelled in 2021. Guernsey is a tank farm rather than an end market, so onward connections to Cushing, Patoka, or the Gulf Coast still need to be built or commercially secured. The BLM scoping period for the federal Environmental Impact Statement closes today, with the final EIS targeted for April 2, 2027 and a final decision by May 31, 2027. Bridger spokesman Bill Salvin has said construction could begin as early as July 2027, if all permits are obtained on schedule, with a 12-to-18-month build pointing to in-service in the second half of 2028 while Trump is still in office.

That is the company’s bull case timeline. Comparable projects have slipped meaningfully against company schedules, with Trans Mountain Expansion taking roughly five years longer than originally planned and Mountain Valley taking six. Bridger also carries the 2015 Yellowstone River spill on its record, the route crosses BLM, USFS, and Army Corps lands, and Indigenous consultation on a project of this scale is rarely fast. A more realistic base case is 2029 or 2030 in-service with material slip risk beyond, which means rail and the existing pipeline grid remain the only egress option for incremental Western Canadian volumes well into the next decade. PFL has been watching this one for years and thought common sense would come to light at some point. It appears it finally has, but the trains are not coming off the rails any time soon. Stay tuned to PFL for further updates. 

We Are Watching Left Wing Carney

Two stories on the prime minister last week, both unflattering. First, the Bridger permit. While Trump signed a cross-border permit for a 647-mile Canadian-crude line into Wyoming last Thursday, Ottawa has approved exactly zero new bitumen pipelines on the Canadian side since taking office. The shortest path to market for incremental Alberta bitumen, in the year of the largest oil supply disruption in modern history, runs through Montana because the Carney government has not built one of its own.

Second, the November MOU with Premier Smith continues to slip. The April 1 deadline for the four foundational arrangements came and went without final agreement on the carbon pricing framework or the Oilsands Alliance MOU. Smith has set a July 1 deadline for her own government to submit a West Coast pipeline proposal to the federal Major Projects Office. Even on an accelerated regulatory track, Carney’s two-year review timeline puts in-service for any Alberta pipeline well into the 2030s.

PFL has been tracking the Carney pipeline file since the MOU signing. In our opinion, the Bridger permit signing in Washington while Ottawa is still negotiating with itself tells you everything you need to know about which jurisdiction wants this oil moved and which one does not. Stay tuned to PFL for further updates.

We Are Watching the UAE

The United Arab Emirates exits OPEC effective Friday of last week, ending a 59-year membership. UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei framed it as a need for greater flexibility, but the substance is straightforward: Abu Dhabi has invested heavily to expand upstream capacity well above its OPEC allocation, the quota tensions have been festering for years, and the war in Iran created the political cover to leave. The UAE’s departure removes a meaningful source of spare capacity from the OPEC quota system during the most disruptive supply shock since the 1970’’s.

The departure does not put barrels into the market in the immediate term because Hormuz remains effectively closed. Roughly 12 to 15 million barrels per day of crude, refined products, LPG, and petrochemicals are constrained by the closure, amounting to nearly 500 million barrels of lost hydrocarbon supplies each month. The earliest credible estimate for the strait reopening is July, which does not account for repairs to onshore production and refining damage from the war, and the U..S.. has separately said it will take six months to clear the mines Iran laid in the strait.

The pull on US Gulf Coast barrels has been significant. Enterprise Products Partners reported Q1 crude exports of 866,000 barrels per day, up 18% year-over-year, with the Trump administration’s late-March SPR drawdowns sending roughly 400,000 barrels per day to European buyers across May and June. Enterprise expects Q2 export volumes to push above 1 million barrels per day, and very large gas carrier rates loading in Houston have hit their highest levels since November 2023 on Asian LPG demand replacing lost Mideast Gulf supply. For Canadian and US barrels, the long-tail case for keeping North American rail and export infrastructure available through this window has not weakened. 

We Are Watching Shell

Shell announced its $22 billion acquisition of Calgary-based ARC Resources last Monday, the largest Canadian energy deal in years. The deal moves Shell from the seventh-largest Montney producer to the second, adding roughly 1.5 million net acres to its existing 440,000 acres and bringing approximately 2 billion barrels of proved-plus-probable reserves into the portfolio. ARC reported its own Q1 results inside the same week with record production of 418,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up 12% year-on-year, with condensate output up 19% to 104,000 barrels per day and natural gas liquids up to 52,000  barrels per day.

The strategic logic runs through Kitimat. Shell is the 40% lead partner in LNG Canada, which started Phase 1 commercial operations last summer. Shell CEO Wael Sawan suggested on Tuesday of last week that a final investment decision on Phase 2 could come by the end of this year, which would effectively double the facility’s 14 million tonne per year nameplate capacity. Qatar’s LNG export capacity remains substantially offline because of the war in Iran, and the Asian premium has shifted decisively in favor of West Coast Canadian supply over U.S. Gulf Coast competitors.

For PFL’s client base, the relevance is in the liquids stream. ARC is Canada’s largest producer of condensate, and Sawan’s view is that Canada will be “short condensate for a long, long time,” with current shortfalls being met by US imports. That structural condensate deficit drives sustained tank car demand for diluent into the Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan complex, plus the NGL and butane volumes that move from the Montney to fractionation, blending, and U.S, and Asian export markets. 

We Are Watching BP

The BP Whiting lockout entered its seventh week with no settlement. The company has continued to run the 440,000 barrel per day Midwest refinery on replacement labor since locking out 800 United Steelworkers Local 7-1 members on March 19. BP says it has tried twice since early April to restart negotiations and has received no formal response from the union. The union maintains BP’s proposal eliminates roughly 100 positions and includes wage reductions across most classifications, framing the lockout as concession bargaining rather than a contract dispute.

The 2015 BP Whiting work stoppage ran 101 days, and the underlying issues this time are harder, so a long-tail outcome is increasingly the base case.

For Midwest refined product flows, the plant is producing but maintenance and capital project work has been deferred. PFL is monitoring the Midwest crude and product flow chain.

We Are Watching Canadian Grain

The Agriculture Transport Coalition released a hard economic number on rail-driven grain disruption last week as part of its “Too Much on the Line” campaign. A single week of rail and port disruption during peak export season costs Canada’s grain sector up to $540 million, and roughly 94% of that loss comes from missed sales, rather than penalties or added costs. International buyers do not wait. They turn to Australia, the US, and Ukraine, and those sales do not come back.

The damage starts before anyone walks off the job. The analysis found up to $112 million in sales can be lost before a disruption even officially begins, as railways stop accepting new shipments, exporters pull back from commitments, and buyers hedge by sourcing elsewhere the moment a work stoppage looks likely. A one-week shutdown of both CN and CPKC could cost the sector more than $500 million on its own, with port disruptions causing far less damage because nearly all Canadian export grain relies on rail to reach port or market. More than 70% of Canadian grain production is exported, and approximately 94% of those exports move by rail.

The timing of this report is not accidental. Collective agreements covering tens of thousands of Canadian rail workers expire over the next 24 months, and federal labour relations consultations are underway now. The Coalition is pushing for the federal government to appoint a Special Mediator to oversee bargaining and to give the Minister authority to refer disputes to binding arbitration before work stoppages occur, not after. The 2024 dual railway shutdown is still fresh; CN and CPKC both shut down within weeks of each other, costing the sector millions per day until back-to-work legislation passed.

Grain car delivery performance has remained below the 90% threshold for twelve consecutive weeks through week 36 (the week ended April 20), with hopper supply averaging 73% over that stretch and the most recent week at 77%. The system is already running tight without a labor disruption, and the next round of bargaining is the policy lever that determines whether 2026-27 grain movement becomes a structural risk to North American hopper car demand. PFL has clients across the grain hopper fleet and is tracking the consultation process closely. 

We are Watching Key Economic Indicators

Consumer Spending

In March 2026, consumer spending strengthened notably, with personal consumption expenditures (PCE) rising 0.9 percent month-over-month. In current-dollar terms, spending increased by approximately $195 billion, with gains across both goods and services, highlighting resilient household demand. On an inflation-adjusted basis, real PCE rose 0.2 percent, indicating modest but positive growth in underlying consumption.

The personal saving rate declined to 3.6 percent in March, suggesting households drew more on savings to support stronger spending.

On inflation, the PCE price index — the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge — increased 0.7 percent month-over-month in March, pushing the year-over-year rate to 3.5 percent. Core PCE (excluding food and energy) rose 0.3 percent on the month and 3.2 percent year-over-year, indicating that underlying inflation remains elevated and above the Fed’s 2 percent target.

Consumer Confidence

The Index of Consumer Sentiment from the University of Michigan decreased from 53.3 in March to 49.8 in April.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index increased from 92.2 in March to 92.8 in April.

Lease Bids

• 100, 21.9K 117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Midwest. For use in CO2 service. Period: 6 months.
• 30-50, 30K 117J Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Northeast. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year.
• 20-50, 4000-5000 Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Houston. For use in Urea, Potash, Ammonium Sulfate service. Period: 6-12 Months.
• 200, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of CSX or NS in Ohio. For use in Propylene service. Period: 18 Months.
• 30-50, 25.5K DOT 111 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Anywhere. For use in Asphalt service. Period: 1-3 Years.
• 40, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP in Eunice, LA. For use in Propane service. Period: 1 Year.
• 40, 29K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Midwest. For use in Veg Oil service. Period: 5 Year.
• 70, 30K DOT 117 Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Ohio. For use in Diesel service. Period: 3 months.
• 100, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. For use in Propane service. Period: 6 Months.
• 20, DOT 117J Tanks located off of NS, CSX, CN, or CPKC in Various. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year. Need gauge rods.
• 50, 30K DOT 117J Tanks located off of CP or CN in Canada. For use in Jet Fuel service. Period: 1 Year.

Sales Bids

• 28, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP BN in Texas. For use in Cement service. Cement Gates needed.
• 20, 17K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in corn syrup service.
• 120, Various Open-Top Aluminum Rotary Gondolas located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in Sulphur service. Built 2004 or later.
• 30, 29K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in Chicago. For use in Veg Oil service.

Lease Offers

• 106, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 20, 31.8K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 86, 29K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline. Coiled and Insulated.
• 21, 6351 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 29, 6500 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 50, 20K DOT117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Moving. Last used in Styrene.
• 29, 25.5K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Cars are currently clean. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Corpus Christie. Last used in Diesel.
• 200, 340W DOT 112J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Multiple Locations. Last used in Propane and Butane. Cars are currently clean.
• 15, 6200CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 30, 6500CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 24, 21K Stainless Steel Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in SULFACTANT. Cars are currently clean.
• 34, 30K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in Veg Oil. Cars are currently clean.
• 117, 30K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline.
• 100, 28.4K DOT 117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Beaumont, TX. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in the South. Last used in Ethanol.

Sales Offers

• 81, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in TX. Last used in Multiple. Requal Due in 2025.
• 35, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Midwest. Last used in Sand.
• 25, 30K 117J Tanks located off of CSX in Jackson, TN. Last used in Fuels. Newly Requalified.

Call PFL today to discuss your needs and our availability and market reach. Whether you are looking to lease cars, lease out cars, buy cars, or sell cars call PFL today at 239-390-2885

Live Railcar Markets

PFL will be at the Following Conferences

The post PFL Railcar Report 5-4-2026 appeared first on PFL Petroleum Services LTD.

Jobs Update

• Initial jobless claims seasonally adjusted for the week ending April 18, 2026 came in at 214,000, versus the adjusted number of 208,000 people from the week prior, up 6,000 people week over week.

• Continuing jobless claims came in at 1,821,000, versus the adjusted number of 1,809,000 people from the week prior, up 12,000 week-over-week.

Stocks closed mixed on Friday of last week and mixed week-over-week

The DOW closed lower on Friday of last week, down -79.61 points (-0.16%), closing out the week at 49,230.71, down -217.21 points week-over-week. The S&P 500 closed higher on Friday of last week, up 56.68 points (0.80%), and closed out the week at 7,165.08, up 39.04 points week-over-week. The NASDAQ closed higher on Friday of last week, up 398.09 points (1.63%), and closed out the week at 24,836.60, up 368.12 points week-over-week.

In overnight trading, DOW futures are pointing lower and are expected to open at 49,303 this morning, down 89 points from Friday’s close.

Crude oil closed mixed on Friday of last week and higher week-over-week

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed down -1.45 per barrel (-1.5%), to close at $94.40 on Friday of last week, but up $10.55 week-over-week. Brent crude closed up 0.26 per barrel (0.3%), to close at $105.33, and up $14.95 week-over-week. 

One Exchange WCS (Western Canadian Select) for June delivery settled on Friday of last week at US$14.74 below the WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average). The implied value was US$74.65 per barrel.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 1.9 million barrels week-over-week. At 465.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are 3% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 4.6 million barrels week-over-week and are 0.5 % below the five-year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 3.4 million barrels week-over-week and are 8% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane/propylene inventories increased by 2.1 million barrels week-over-week and are 69% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane prices closed at 76.1 cents per gallon on Friday of last week, up 5.1 cents per gallon week-over-week, but down 7.4 cents year-over-year.

Overall, total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 1.8 million barrels week-over-week, during the week ending April 17, 2026.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.1 million barrels per day during the week ending April 17, 2026, an increase of 787,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 6 million barrels per day, 0.4% less than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) averaged 587,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 190,000 barrels per day during the week ending April 17, 2026.

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 4.798 million barrels per day during the week ending April 17, 2026, a decrease of 427,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil exports averaged 4.423 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16 million barrels per day during the week ending April 17, 2026, which was 55,000 barrels per day less week-over-week.

WTI is poised to open at $96.40, up $2 per barrel from Friday’s close.

North American Rail Traffic

Week Ending April 22, 2026:

Total North American weekly rail volumes were up (+1.30%) in week 17, compared with the same week last year. Total Carloads for the week ending April 22, 2026 were 333,933, up (+2.09%) compared with the same week in 2025, while weekly Intermodal volume was 336,179, up (+0.53%) year over year. 8 of the AAR’s 11 major traffic categories posted year-over-year increases. The largest decrease came from Forest Products (-13.17%). The largest increase was Grain (+19.17%).

In the East, CSX’s total volumes were up (+1.19%), with the largest decrease coming from Metallic Ores and Metals (-14.61%), while the largest increase came from Other (+12.55%). NS’s total volumes were up (+2.13%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+30.93%), while the largest decrease came from Forest Products (-8.81%).

In the West, BNSF’s total volumes were up (+7.29%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+28.99%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-11.89%). UP’s total volumes were down (-0.14%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+19.28%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-16.87%).

In Canada, CN’s total volumes were down (-0.08%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+37.04%), while the largest decrease came from Farm Products (-11.91%). CPKCS’s total volumes were down (-20.11%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+15.86%), while the largest decrease came from Forest Products (-68.54%).

Source Data: AAR – PFL Analytics

North American Rig Count Summary

Rig Count

North American rig count was up by +1 rig week-over-week. The US rig count was up by +1 rig week-over-week, but down by -43 rigs year-over-year. The US currently has 544 active rigs. Canada’s rig count was unchanged week-over-week and up by +2 rigs year-over-year. Canada currently has 130 active rigs. Overall, year-over-year we are down by -41 rigs collectively.

We are watching a few things out there for you:

PFL Attended Last Week’s WCRTC Spring Networking Event Calgary, Canada

The Western Canadian Rail & Transportation Club hosted its Spring Networking event on Thursday of last week at the Royal Canadian Pavilion in Calgary, Canada, bringing together professionals from across the rail, logistics, and transportation sectors. Cyndi from PFL’s Calgary office was in attendance.  The conversations on the floor reflected an industry navigating some real headwinds. Here is what people were talking about:

Service performance came up throughout the evening. Grain car delivery performance has remained below 90% for nine consecutive weeks as of late March 2026, a trend attendees acknowledged is worth watching closely as the spring shipping season gets underway.

The topic generating the most discussion was labour uncertainty heading into the next two years. With collective agreements covering tens of thousands of Canadian rail workers expiring over the next 24 months, the room was candid about the risk. Potential work stoppages could affect over $1 billion worth of goods daily, a number the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has been vocal about. The federal government is exploring binding arbitration to manage the risk, but the industry is watching nervously, particularly after the disruptions of 2024.

One bright spot that came up in conversation was the federal government’s temporary suspension of the fuel excise tax on diesel and gasoline running April through September 2026, welcome cost relief for carriers and shippers dealing with elevated global fuel prices.

We Are Watching Tank Car Tariffs

Folks, the lead story this week for everyone in our world is the inclusion of rail tank cars under Section 232. The 25% tariff on the full value of imported tank railcars under HTS 8606.10.0000, along with a matching 25% tariff on axles, wheels, and couplers, took effect on April 6th. The order explicitly supersedes the USMCA exemptions that previously allowed duty-free import of Mexican-built tank cars and components, and that is where the immediate pain is going to land.

Union Tank Car, which builds exclusively at its Alexandria, Louisiana plant, requested the inclusion back in September of last year. Roughly 75% of competitor tank car production sits in Mexico. Greenbrier and Trinity, both with significant Mexican capacity, sent letters of opposition. Union Tank won. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana took a victory lap two weeks ago, claiming credit for protecting the 350 jobs in Alexandria. The political optics are clear, but the practical effect is that builders with Mexican exposure will pass the 25% straight through to shippers ordering new equipment.

This is a cost story for PFL’s customers, full stop. New build economics that were already strained by steel prices and a thin tank car backlog now have another twenty-five points loaded on top of any car with Mexican content. Existing equipment values just got a meaningful tailwind, lease renewals are about to get more interesting, and the tariff is not getting repealed any time soon. PFL is fielding calls from shippers trying to figure out whether to pull forward 2027 and 2028 orders or wait it out. There is no clean answer, but the calculus has shifted hard in favor of locking down what you can today. We are happy to walk through fleet implications with anyone who wants the conversation.

We Are Watching Hormuz

The Iran war is now in its ninth week and oil markets are still struggling to figure out where the range is. WTI closed Friday around $97 per barrel and Brent around $106, with both up roughly 15% on the week alone. Year-to-date WTI is up about 65% and Brent up 73%, with the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed and no end-state in sight on the US-Iran negotiations.

President Trump extended the ceasefire indefinitely while Washington waits for a new formal proposal from Tehran, but the naval blockade on Iranian ports stays in place. On Thursday, Trump posted on Truth Social that he had ordered the U.S. Navy to “shoot and kill” any vessel laying mines in the Strait. U.S. forces also boarded a sanctioned tanker carrying Iranian crude in the Indian Ocean last week. The IEA’s April Oil Market Report has shipments through the Strait running at 3.8 million barrels per day versus more than 20 million before the crisis, and the market continues to read every headline as escalation rather than resolution.

On the policy side, Trump extended the energy-specific Jones Act waiver by 90 days last week, pushing the expiration to August 15. Phillips 66 has already used it to load 300,000 barrels of Bakken crude on a Malta-flagged Panamex at its Nederland terminal in Texas and deliver it to Monroe Energy’s 190,000 b/d Trainer refinery in Pennsylvania, which Delta Air Lines owns. At least 15 foreign-flagged vessels have moved more than 2.7 million barrels of crude and products under the waiver since it was first issued in March. The waiver is the kind of administrative tool that can disappear with a single executive order once the Iran situation is resolved

We are Watching Canadian Crude Oil Exports by Rail

The Canadian Energy regulator reported on April 20, 2026, that 79,057 barrels were exported during the month of February 2026, down from 82,183 barrels in January of 2026, a decrease of -3,126  barrels per day month-over-month and its lowest level since October of 2025. 

Crude by rail will always be necessary out of Canada for stranded oil not connected by pipelines. Raw bitumen, which is shipped as a non-haz product and is not able to flow in pipelines, is competitive with pipeline tolls and is a growing market to keep an eye on, particularly in light of Strathcona and Gibson announcing new projects. Other factors would be existing long-term contractual commitments and basis – we really need to see basis WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average) blowout to -18 per barrel for sustained periods of time to make economic sense. Current rail rates from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast have averaged $15.36 per barrel, making rail competitive whenever WCS-WTI spreads exceed $18 per barrel, including quality adjustments.

 We Are Watching Enbridge

Enbridge notified shippers last week that it will apportion May heavy crude nominations on the 3.1 million b/d Mainline by 14% at Superior, Wisconsin, the same level as April and the highest reading since before TMX came on line in May 2024. Light crude at Kerrobert was apportioned 15%. The Chicago WCS 6-3-2-1 crack averaged around $50 per barrel during the May trading cycle, and US Gulf netbacks for Canadian heavy were profitable for most sellers, which is what is driving the demand for Mainline space.

Trans Mountain is running close to capacity on Asian and US west coast pull, so the relief valve that should be taking pressure off the Mainline is not there. Western Canadian production continues to grow at roughly 2% to 4% per year, and existing pipeline egress out of the basin is on track to be fully utilized by the end of this year. Cold weather and seasonal diluent requirements will tighten effective pipeline capacity for bitumen further heading into next winter. Without new long-haul pipeline capacity in service before 2027, the math leaves rail as the only takeaway option for incremental Western Canadian production.

In other Enbridge news, two big stories landed inside 48 hours last week. On Friday of last week, Ottawa approved Enbridge’s $4 billion Sunrise natural gas expansion, adding 300 million cubic feet per day to the Westcoast system that runs from northeast BC and northwest Alberta to the Canada-US border. Construction starts in July with in-service targeted for late 2028. The project has 38 First Nations partners. This is the first major pipeline approval of the Carney era, and CEO Greg Ebel pointedly noted on Friday of last week that the project has been four years in development and still does not have a shovel in the ground.

Earlier in the week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Enbridge in the Line 5 jurisdictional fight, sending the Michigan attorney general’s case back to state court. Justice Sotomayor wrote that Enbridge waited 887 days to file its motion to remove the case to federal court, well past the 30-day statutory window. Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer and AG Dana Nessel have been trying to shut down the 540,000 b/d Line 5 since 2019 on public-trust and environmental grounds, and state court is the venue she has wanted from day one.

Line 5 carries mostly Canadian volumes through Michigan to refineries in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ontario, and Quebec, with NGLs feeding a Sarnia complex. The Mackinac tunnel replacement project is being fast-tracked under a 2025 presidential order, but the underlying state court fight just got a green light to proceed. If Line 5 is forced down for any period of time, the displacement question for tank cars hauling crude and NGLs into the eastern refining footprint becomes immediate and very large – too large to handle in our opinion. PFL has been watching this one for years and thought common sense would come to light at some point. It appears it has not!  Stay tuned to PFL for further updates.

We Are Watching Left Wing Carney

Two stories on the prime minister this week. First, the IEA release commitment Canada made back in March turned out to be largely a fiction. The promised 23.6 million barrels was just natural production growth that was already baked in for summer 2026, regardless of the Iran crisis. Canada is the only G7 nation without a strategic petroleum reserve, and when the global system needed real barrels in March, all Ottawa could offer was a relabeling of barrels that were coming anyway.

Second, as we covered last week, Carney met with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and laid down what Kinew described publicly as an “aggressive” ultimatum on the Port of Churchill expansion: get LNG flowing within four years or federal support comes off the table. Kinew, to his credit, was honest about it, telling reporters that if the project does not move in that timeline “the ship will probably sail and Manitoba won’t see that benefit.” You cannot deliver LNG out of Hudson Bay in four years through brand new infrastructure across treaty land with no anchor shipper signed and no FID announced.

Meanwhile, Alberta is not waiting. Premier Smith waived the 3% tariff on diluted bitumen exports to South Korea last week, signed an MOU with Hanwha Group covering energy and defense investment, and confirmed her June deadline to submit a 1 million b/d west coast pipeline proposal to the Major Projects Office. Alberta exported about C$400 million worth of crude to South Korea in 2025 and expects that to grow to as much as C$1 billion annually under the new arrangement. Smith is signing actual deals with actual buyers while Carney issues four-year ultimatums on infrastructure he has done nothing to enable.

We Are Watching Surcharges

Following up on last week’s coverage of the U.S. Class I surcharge moves, the Canadian carriers are now stepping up similarly. CPKC’s surcharge averaged 33 cents per mile before the Iran war, climbed to 48.5 cents per mile in the first half of April, and 68 cents per mile in the back half. The May surcharge will be 74.5 cents per mile, more than double the pre-war level.

The driver is diesel. UP confirmed on its Q1 earnings call last Thursday that diesel is now running over $4 per gallon in April, well above the $2.35 the carrier had originally forecast in January. CN’s surcharge formula is moving in lockstep, and Class I shippers across the network are absorbing fuel pass-through that no one had budgeted for at the start of the year.

For PFL’s Western Canadian LPG customers, this is a direct hit. Edmonton propane volumes move by rail to British Columbia for export and to U.S. midcontinent destinations, and the route is long enough that the per-mile surcharge translates into real cents per gallon. The arithmetic flows back to producers through softer Edmonton bids as buyers compensate for higher transport. Edmonton propane has averaged a 16.2 cent per gallon discount to Conway in April, and the May surcharge step-up will widen that discount further as buyers price in the higher freight. Western Canadian propane stocks were 21.3% above year-earlier levels at the start of April, so the supply side is not going to absorb the cost. PFL’s NGL fleet customers should expect Q2 economics to look meaningfully different from what was modeled at the start of the year.

We Are Watching the UP/NS Merger

The revised UP-NS merger application is due at the STB this Thursday, April 30. UP and Norfolk Southern have had two months since the original 7,000-page application got rejected in January as incomplete, and the industry is waiting to see whether the carriers actually addressed the deficiencies that BNSF, CSX, CN, and CPKC ripped apart in their December and January filings.

Union Pacific reported Q1 earnings on Thursday and the merger overhang showed up in the numbers. Net income came in at $1.7 billion or $2.87 per diluted share, with merger costs of $36 million or six cents a share weighing on results. CFO Jennifer Hamann acknowledged on the call that diesel is now running over $4 per gallon in April, well above the $2.35 originally forecast in January, which sets up margin pressure heading into Q2. CSX, which reported on Tuesday, raised full-year revenue guidance to mid-single-digit growth on the back of fuel costs and noted that shippers are looking more to rail conversion as truck and fuel costs climb.

The first application failed on basic completeness, not on the merits. Truck diversion data was missing, network maps glossed over overlapping lines, and entire appendices of the merger agreement were left out. The substantive opposition from the rest of the Class I network and major shipper groups has only firmed up since January. If the STB accepts the revised filing as complete in May or June of this year, the formal review starts the clock and a substantive decision will land well into 2027. For tank car owners and lessors, that strategic uncertainty around what the eastern half of the North American rail map looks like in 2028 is going to keep some shippers from committing to long-term lease structures and corridor-specific equipment buys.

We Are Watching Bridger

Comments on the Bridger Pipeline scoping process close on Friday, May 1. Bridger Pipeline LLC, owned by True Companies out of Casper, has filed plans for a 36-inch line running 647 miles from the Canadian border in Phillips County, Montana, south to a terminal at Guernsey, Wyoming. Initial throughput is 550,000 barrels per day with maximum capacity of 1.13 million bpd. The project carries a price tag of roughly $2 billion.

Bridger is positioning itself as the natural U.S. partner for South Bow’s revival of portions of Keystone XL. The Guernsey terminal is not an end market on its own, so the project will need additional connections to Cushing, Patoka, or the Gulf Coast to actually make sense. The route maps include potential tie-ins to Bakken gathering, which gives the project real optionality even before the Canadian crude piece is firmed up. If Trump approves the Presidential Permit and South Bow’s Keystone XL revival gets the corresponding green light, Canadian crude exports to the U.S. could rise by more than 12%.

Construction is years away even in the best case, and the EIS process has barely started. The longer-term takeaway is that any Canadian shipper serious about a multi-year crude rail strategy needs to be modeling the scenario where Bridger and an Alberta-to-BC pipeline both get built late in the decade. PFL is following the scoping comments and the Presidential Permit timeline closely. If you want our read on what this means for your fleet positioning, give us a call.

Lease Bids

• 100, 21.9K 117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Midwest. For use in CO2 service. Period: 6 months.
• 30-50, 30K 117J Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Northeast. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year.
• 20-50, 4000-5000 Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Houston. For use in Urea, Potash, Ammonium Sulfate service. Period: 6-12 Months.
• 200, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of CSX or NS in Ohio. For use in Propylene service. Period: 18 Months.
• 30-50, 25.5K DOT 111 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Anywhere. For use in Asphalt service. Period: 1-3 Years.
• 40, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP in Eunice, LA. For use in Propane service. Period: 1 Year.
• 40, 29K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Midwest. For use in Veg Oil service. Period: 5 Year.
• 70, 30K DOT 117 Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Ohio. For use in Diesel service. Period: 3 months.
• 100, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. For use in Propane service. Period: 6 Months.
• 20, DOT 117J Tanks located off of NS, CSX, CN, or CPKC in Various. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year. Need gauge rods.
• 50, 30K DOT 117J Tanks located off of CP or CN in Canada. For use in Jet Fuel service. Period: 1 Year.

Sales Bids

• 28, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP BN in Texas. For use in Cement service. Cement Gates needed.
• 20, 17K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in corn syrup service.
• 120, Various Open-Top Aluminum Rotary Gondolas located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in Sulphur service. Built 2004 or later.
• 30, 29K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in Chicago. For use in Veg Oil service.

Lease Offers

• 106, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 20, 31.8K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 86, 29K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline. Coiled and Insulated.
• 21, 6351 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 29, 6500 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 50, 20K DOT117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Moving. Last used in Styrene.
• 29, 25.5K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Cars are currently clean. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Corpus Christie. Last used in Diesel.
• 200, 340W DOT 112J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Multiple Locations. Last used in Propane and Butane. Cars are currently clean.
• 15, 6200CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 30, 6500CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 24, 21K Stainless Steel Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in SULFACTANT. Cars are currently clean.
• 34, 30K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in Veg Oil. Cars are currently clean.
• 117, 30K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline.
• 100, 28.4K DOT 117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Beaumont, TX. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in the South. Last used in Ethanol.

Sales Offers

• 81, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in TX. Last used in Multiple. Requal Due in 2025.
• 35, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Midwest. Last used in Sand.
• 25, 30K 117J Tanks located off of CSX in Jackson, TN. Last used in Fuels. Newly Requalified.

Call PFL today to discuss your needs and our availability and market reach. Whether you are looking to lease cars, lease out cars, buy cars, or sell cars call PFL today at 239-390-2885

Live Railcar Markets

PFL will be at the Following Conferences

The post PFL Railcar Report 4-27-2026 appeared first on PFL Petroleum Services LTD.

Jobs Update

• Initial jobless claims seasonally adjusted for the week ending April 11, 2026 came in at 207,000, versus the adjusted number of 218,000 people from the week prior, down 11,000 people week over week.

• Continuing jobless claims came in at 1,818,000, versus the adjusted number of 1,787,000 people from the week prior, up 31,000 week-over-week.

Stocks closed higher on Friday of last week and higher week-over-week

The DOW closed higher on Friday of last week, up 869.20 points (1.79%), closing out the week at 49,447.92, up 1,531.35 points week-over-week. The S&P 500 closed higher on Friday of last week, up 84.76 points (1.20%), and closed out the week at 7,126.04, up 309.15 points week-over-week. The NASDAQ closed higher on Friday of last week, up 365.78 points (1.52%), and closed out the week at 24,468.48, up 1,565.59 points week-over-week.

In overnight trading, DOW futures traded lower and are expected to open at 49,377 this morning, down 264 points from Friday’s close.

Crude oil closed lower on Friday of last week and lower week-over-week

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed down -10.84 per barrel (-11.5%), to close at $83.85 on Friday of last week, and down $12.72 week-over-week. Brent crude closed down -9.01 per barrel (-9.1%), to close at $90.38, and down $4.82 week-over-week. 

One Exchange WCS (Western Canadian Select) for May delivery settled on Friday of last week at US$17.00 below the WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average). The implied value was US$72.77 per barrel.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 900,000 barrels week-over-week. At 463.8 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are 1% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 6.3 million barrels week-over-week and are 1% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 3.1 million barrels week-over-week and are 6% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane/propylene inventories increased by 300,000 barrels week-over-week and are 68% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane prices closed at 71 cents per gallon on Friday of last week, down 5.2 cents per gallon week-over-week, and down 3.8 cents year-over-year.

Overall, total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 9.0 million barrels week-over-week, during the week ending April 10, 2026.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.3 million barrels per day during the week ending April 10, 2026, a decrease of 1.0 million barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 6.1 million barrels per day, 1.3% more than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) averaged 316,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 118,000 barrels per day during the week ending April 10, 2026.

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 5.225 million barrels per day during the week ending April 10, 2026, an increase of 1.076 million barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil exports averaged 4.054 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16 million barrels per day during the week ending April 10, 2026, which was 208,000 barrels per day less week-over-week.

WTI is poised to open at $87.13 this morning, up $4.54 from Friday’s close.

North American Rail Traffic

Week Ending April 15, 2026:

Total North American weekly rail volumes were up (+1.31%) in week 16, compared with the same week last year. Total Carloads for the week ending April 15, 2026 were 337,539, up (+5.48%) compared with the same week in 2025, while weekly Intermodal volume was 327,175, down (-2.66%) year over year. 7 of the AAR’s 11 major traffic categories posted year-over-year increases. The largest decrease came from Forest Products (-8.90%). The largest increase was Coal (+21.06%).

In the East, CSX’s total volumes were up (+4.60%), with the largest decrease coming from Metallic Ores and Metals (-7.89%), while the largest increase came from Grain (+20.18%). NS’s total volumes were up (+0.12%), with the largest increase coming from Other (+17.82%), while the largest decrease came from Motor Vehicles and Parts (-10.49%).

In the West, BNSF’s total volumes were up (+4.04%), with the largest increase coming from Coal (+69.60%), while the largest decrease came from Grain (-2.11%). UP’s total volumes were down (-0.59%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+15.52%), while the largest decrease came from Intermodal Units (-8.19%).

In Canada, CN’s total volumes were up (+11.87%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+136.50%). CPKCS’s total volumes were down (-22.00%), with the largest increase coming from Farm Products (+33.18%), while the largest decrease came from Forest Products (-67.15%).

Source Data: AAR – PFL Analytics

North American Rig Count Summary

Rig Count

North American rig count was down by -7 rigs week-over-week. The US rig count was down by -2 rigs week-over-week, and down by -42 rigs year-over-year. The US currently has 543 active rigs. Canada’s rig count was down by -5 rigs week-over-week and down by -4 rigs year-over-year. Canada currently has 130 active rigs. Overall, year-over-year we are down by -46 rigs collectively.

We are watching a few things out there for you:

We were at last week’s tank car committee meeting

The April 2026 Tank Car Committee (TCC) meeting, held in Nashville, Tennessee, brought together key people from across the rail industry, including major railroads, regulatory agencies, and industry organizations, to address ongoing safety, regulatory, and operational priorities. The open session, conducted over April 15–16, focused on a structured agenda that included safety briefings, regulatory updates from agencies such as the FRA, PHMSA, and NTSB, and discussions surrounding the Tank Car Research Program. A significant portion of the meeting centered on active dockets, covering topics such as inspection standards, service equipment performance, cryogenic service approvals, and updates to AAR Manual M-1002 requirements—highlighting the industry’s continued emphasis on safety, compliance, and standardization.

In addition to technical discussions, the committee addressed new business items and ongoing industry challenges, including equipment recalls, regulatory changes in North America, and improvements to data tracking systems like UMLER.  Overall, the April TCC meeting demonstrated the industry’s proactive approach to improving tank car integrity, operational efficiency, and safety across the rail network, while setting the stage for continued progress in upcoming meetings later in 2026. As always please reach out to PFL for further details on what was discussed.  David Cohen and Brian Baker were there representing PFL

We are Watching Petroleum Carloads

The four-week rolling average of petroleum carloads carried on the six largest North American railroads fell to 29,080 from 29,206 which was a decrease of -126 rail cars week-over-week. Canadian volumes were mixed. CN’s shipments were lower by 17.0% week-over-week, CPKC’s volumes were higher by 15.0% week-over-week. U.S. shipments also mixed. The BN had the largest percentage decrease and was down by -12.0%. The UP had the largest percentage increase and was up by +11.0% week-over-week.

We Are Watching Hormuz

Hormuz opened, then closed, then closed harder, all inside 48 hours. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi declared the strait open to commercial traffic last Friday afternoon via X. Markets crashed within the hour with the second-largest one-day drop since the war began, WTI falling 11.4% to $83.85 and Brent 9% to $90.38. Iran’s IRGC reimposed restrictions last Saturday, citing “repeated breaches of trust” by the US on the port blockade, and by Sunday chief negotiator Qalibaf told Iranian state TV that “it is impossible for others to pass through the Strait of Hormuz while we cannot.”

The walkback walked back. The US Navy blockade of Iranian ports is in full force, forcing 23 ships to turn around over the weekend according to CENTCOM. The ten-day US-Iran truce expires this Tuesday, April 21. Over the weekend, Trump posted that Iran had “decided to fire bullets” in the strait and threatened to “knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran” if talks fail, while senior national security officials including the Defense Secretary, CIA Director, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs cycled through the White House last Saturday.

The IEA’s monthly oil market report last Tuesday flipped the agency’s 2026 outlook on its head. The Paris-based agency now projects world oil supply will fall 1.5 million bpd this year, calling it the largest oil supply shock in history. That is a reversal from last month’s forecast of 1.1 million bpd of supply growth. The IEA also lowered its 2026 demand growth forecast to a contraction of 80,000 bpd, from a 640,000 bpd rise in March. The IMF separately warned that restoring a meaningful portion of disrupted Mideast Gulf oil and gas output could take up to two years.

The demand response in North America is already visible. US crude net imports fell to just 66,000 bpd in the week ended April 10, the lowest in weekly data going back to 2001, as export loadings surged to 5.23 million bpd on strong Asian and European pulls. Asia-Pacific refiners have bought between 50 and 70 million barrels of May-loading US crude, with Japan alone taking roughly 30 million. Aframax rates for Vancouver loadings hit record highs on April 13 at $36.20 per ton, as Asian buyers turn to Western Canada, Alaska, and Latin America to replace lost Mideast Gulf barrels. Trans Mountain waterborne exports hit a four-month high of 457,000 bpd in March, and WTI is now landing in Asia at a $26.40 premium to Dubai, more economical than Abu Dhabi’s Murban at a $29.59 premium.

For tank car owners, the oil price whipsaw does not change the structural reality of the North American crude-by-rail fleet. Available crude tank cars are scarce, new builds run twelve to twenty-four months from order to delivery, and any commitment to unit train service requires a minimum five-year lease plus a five-year take-or-pay with the carrier. Crews and locomotives are not sitting in reserve. Whether Hormuz reopens on Tuesday or stays shut through a second round of talks, neither outcome calls new crude cars into service. California remains the canary given CARB specifications and the roughly 30 to 35 percent loss of in-state refining capacity since 2020. Marine insurance for vessels still willing to transit Hormuz is running roughly ten times pre-war prices. Stay tuned to PFL this story is changing by the minute.

We Are Watching the Left Wing Canadian Prime Minister Carney

The Liberals won a majority in government on Monday of last week. Three by-election wins in two Toronto ridings and Terrebonne, Quebec, combined with five earlier floor crossings, gave Prime Minister Mark Carney 174 of 343 seats in the House of Commons. Parliament can sit until October 2029 without a no confidence vote. The Conservatives remain the official opposition at 140 seats.

Carney put his new authority to work last Tuesday, meeting Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew on Parliament Hill and signing a Canada-Manitoba Co-operation Agreement on Environmental and Impact Assessment, applying a “one project, one review” framework to major Manitoba infrastructure. The flagship project is Port of Churchill Plus, which includes an all-weather road, rail line upgrades, a new energy corridor, and strengthened ice-breaking capacity. Federal money is moving, with $500,000 already provided to the Manitoba Crown Indigenous Corporation and $40 million over three years committed for Indigenous engagement on Major Projects Office files.

Kinew is carrying the rail and pipeline part of the messaging. He has openly said that the northern Manitoba trade corridor could include a pipeline to ship Western Canadian energy to Hudson Bay for export to Europe and India. “As the war in Iran drives up energy costs and destabilizes global supply chains, the importance of Churchill cannot be overstated,” Kinew said in a news release. That is a striking endorsement of pipeline economics from a left-leaning premier, and more direct than anything the Prime Minister himself has said.

Carney’s contribution was carefully on-message and carefully vague, talking about cutting red tape, trade corridors, and high-paying Canadian careers. He did not commit to a pipeline. Kinew did. If Manitoba is serious about a natural gas line running through the province, right of way is the largest single line item in pipeline construction, and laying two pipes in one trench is the cheapest way to add export capacity for the next decade. That requires a Prime Minister willing to use the word oil.

The more immediate rail question is what a Liberal majority means for Alberta’s planned West Coast crude oil pipeline, which the province plans to file to the federal Major Projects Office this summer. Carney’s government has attached conditions, including a multi-billion-dollar oil sands investment in carbon capture and sequestration tied to the Pathways project. With a four-year majority runway, Ottawa has no tactical reason to soften those conditions.

We Are Watching Alberta

Last Tuesday, Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean introduced a bill that puts Premier Danielle Smith’s cabinet at the front of the project review process for industrial proposals over $250 million in capital spending. Cabinet conducts an initial review with no fixed deadline. A deputy ministers’ committee gets 30 days. Once cabinet issues an order, regulators have a four-month clock to assess and issue permits. Projects must come in with completed environmental assessments and First Nations consultations.

The pace target is real. Jean noted that US major projects can be approved in under a month and called Ottawa’s two-year Major Projects Office window too slow, saying federal policy has cost Canada billions in foregone investment. Alberta still plans to file an application for a new West Coast crude oil pipeline this summer to that same federal Major Projects Office, even as the province builds its own faster track.

The pace push came the same week Alberta’s energy CEOs went after the federal industrial carbon price at the BMO CAPP Energy Symposium in Toronto last Tuesday. CAPP head Lisa Baiton said the war in the Middle East has put an exclamation point on the case for Canadian production. Cenovus CEO Jon McKenzie called the carbon levy a fallacy as a decarbonization driver. Birchcliff CEO Chris Carlsen said mid-sized producers do not have the scale to make CCS work. Under the Alberta-federal MOU signed late last year, Alberta’s industrial carbon price is set to rise from $95 to $130 per tonne, with Pathways CCS economics tied to that price. The April 1 deadline to finalize that piece passed nearly three weeks ago without resolution.

For rail planning, the practical upshot is a wider gap between what Alberta is willing to approve quickly and what Ottawa can deliver. The faster Alberta moves on an upgrader, refinery, or petrochemical expansion, the longer the lead time it gives car manufacturers and lessors. 

We Are Watching Enbridge

The White House issued nine presidential permits to Enbridge last Wednesday, authorizing cross-border crude and petroleum product pipeline operations. Eight of the nine refresh existing authorizations dating back as far as 1991, covering Enbridge Mainline’s six lines in Pembina County North Dakota, two Mainline export lines from St. Clair Michigan, and the Southern Lights and existing Bakken pipelines. The ninth permit authorizes a newly constructed 24-inch pipeline tied to Enbridge’s Mainline Optimization Phase 2 project.

Phase 2 is the piece worth watching. The project would shift light crude off Enbridge’s Canadian Mainline onto the Bakken Pipeline system and into Dakota Access for delivery to Patoka, Illinois, and onward to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Enbridge has said Phase 2 could add up to 250,000 bpd of capacity as early as late 2028. Phase 1 of the Mainline Optimization program, approved in November 2024 at a cost of US$1.4 billion, adds 150,000 bpd to the Canadian Mainline and 100,000 bpd to Flanagan South, with those volumes targeted for 2027.

The Canadian Mainline is already running hot. In January 2026, Enbridge apportioned heavy and light crude nominations by 13 percent as Alberta production surged into the colder months. Trans Mountain took 457,000 bpd in waterborne exports in March, a four-month high, with 93,000 bpd going to the U.S. West Coast and the rest to Asia. Keystone has operated at 94 to 100 percent utilization through the first half of 2026. Phase 2 is a multi-year pull-forward for Canadian crude egress and a direct substitute for the remaining crude-by-rail volumes out of Western Canada.

The Bakken angle is separate. Line 26 currently flows 145,000 bpd northbound from North Dakota to Cromer, Manitoba and into the Enbridge Mainline system. A southbound reversal, paired with a new 24-inch border crossing, would create a direct southbound path through DAPL to the USGC. Bakken barrels moving to tidewater via pipeline is a structural negative for unit-train crude out of North Dakota, and a further tailwind for USGC export terminals.

For PFL customers operating crude tank car fleets, the announcement does not move immediate volumes. The first capacity additions are twelve to twenty-four months out and Phase 2 another year beyond. Lease decisions being made now on DOT-117 cars should price in a tighter residual crude-by-rail market by 2028, and that is the renewal conversation PFL is having with fleet operators this quarter. 

We Are Watching Fuel Surcharges

Every Class I railroad is raising fuel surcharges in May as the Iran war diesel spike works through mileage-based formulas that reference the EIA’s monthly on-highway diesel average. Union Pacific’s May surcharge rises to 57 cents per mile, up 73 percent from 33 cents in April. CSX goes to 74 cents per mile, up from 44 cents.

The lag explains the magnitude. UP’s April surcharge referenced the February on-highway diesel price of $3.72 per gallon, before the war spike. On-highway diesel averaged $4.92 per gallon in March, up 40 percent from January’s $3.52. During the second week of April, it averaged $5.61. The full lag from the March and April moves will not reach shipper invoices until June and July. U.S. retail diesel averaged $5.608 per gallon in the week ended April 13, up about $1.80 per gallon since the week before the war began on February 23.

Shippers are not taking it quietly. The Alliance for Chemical Distribution petitioned the Surface Transportation Board in March to monitor surcharges on chlorine and other chemical shipments, citing the COVID-19 period and the 2024 rail labor disruption as examples of carriers leveraging external events into permanent fee structures. The STB said on March 20 it would ensure carriers engage in reasonable rules and practices on fuel surcharges and reiterated the 20-day notice requirement. Chlor-alkali producers Westlake and Olin have added their own fuel surcharges effective April 1 on rail and truck shipments.

For PFL customers, the fuel surcharge is an unavoidable layer on top of every loaded mile. The most exposed lanes are long-haul manifest moves in commodities that already carry thin margins, including chemicals, fertilizer, plastics, and ethanol. Tank car lease rates themselves have been steady, with non-pressurized CPC-1232 cars on 1-to-5-year terms at $800 per month and DOT-117s at $1,000. The fuel surcharge piece is what will hit the monthly invoice through Q2 and into Q3. Where alternative routings exist on a given lane, PFL can help shippers model the carrier-by-carrier differential before the May schedules take effect. 

We Are Watching Schedule 5.8

Four shipper trade associations filed a joint motion with the Surface Transportation Board last Tuesday asking the agency to reclassify a key section of the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger agreement from “Highly Confidential” to public. The filing came from the Alliance for Chemical Distribution, the American Chemistry Council, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and The Fertilizer Institute. Those four groups cover virtually every bulk shipper category, PFL advises.

The section in question is Schedule 5.8, which defines what qualifies as a “Materially Burdensome Regulatory Condition” under the merger agreement. That definition is the trigger that would let UP walk away from the $250 billion-plus transaction and pay Norfolk Southern a $2.5 billion breakup fee. In other words, Schedule 5.8 is where UP has listed the regulatory concessions it is not willing to accept. The shipper groups argue the document contains no trade secrets, rates, costs, or shipper-identifying data, and therefore does not qualify as confidential under the protective order the STB entered in August 2025.

The STB rejected UP and NS’s original December 19 merger application on January 16 as incomplete, specifically flagging the missing Schedule 5.8 as one of the deficiencies. UP and NS are scheduled to refile their revised application on April 30, ten days after this report publishes. Whether Schedule 5.8 is made public or kept sealed will shape what shippers, competing railroads, and state attorneys general can see and contest during the comment window that follows.

For rail car interests, this is not background noise. The conditions UP has flagged as deal-breakers are effectively its map of where it expects regulatory fights, which means they are also a map of where service commitments, gateway access, interchange rules, and rate remedies are most likely to be negotiated. Chemical, petrochemical, and fertilizer shippers pushing for disclosure are doing so because they want to know, before comment period closes, whether the combined carrier is willing to absorb conditions that protect their interests or intends to walk if those conditions are imposed.

We Are Watching Permian NGL

Enterprise Products Partners hosted its annual supply appraisal forecast call last Tuesday and raised its five-year outlook for Permian NGL production. The company now expects Permian NGLs from natural gas processing to grow 24 percent from 2025 levels to 4.7 million bpd by 2030, 200,000 bpd above the April 2025 outlook. Associated natural gas is projected to grow 23 percent to 35.4 bcf per day over the same period. The 2030 crude forecast was trimmed.

The basin is getting gassier. Enterprise now projects NGL and natural gas output to outpace crude production by 60%across the forecast horizon, up from a 40% gap in last year’s view. Wells are producing higher gas-to-oil ratios as operators step into new horizons and refine completion techniques. That is a structural shift in what the Permian pulls out of the ground, not a cyclical move. Total U.S. NGL production was trimmed by 100,000 bpd to 9.0 million bpd in 2030, which means the Permian is taking share from other basins, rather than riding a general tide.

The Iran war is adding near-term demand pull. Enterprise executives said on the call that NGL demand is stronger for longer because of the supply constraints that emerged over the last six to seven weeks, and that LPG export capacity is sufficient to handle expected volume growth for the foreseeable future. LPG exports out of the U.S. Gulf Coast are the primary channel for moving Permian propane and butane to Asian and European buyers displaced by the Hormuz disruption.

For rail, the read is mixed but net positive on the non-crude side. Permian NGL takeaway is primarily a pipeline story, with Enterprise’s Bahia line, Mont Belvieu fractionation, and Neches River export terminal absorbing most of the physical volume growth. But pressurized LPG cars still matter for inland distribution, fractionation redistribution, and any lane where pipeline capacity falls short. Pressurized tank car lease rates on one to five year terms are at $1,200 per month and utilization is holding firm. 

We Are Watching Union Pacific and Rocky Mountain Steel

This week, Union Pacific signed a seven-year rail supply agreement with Rocky Mountain Steel Mills, the only remaining dedicated steel rail production mill in the United States.

The Pueblo, Colorado facility has supplied rail to Union Pacific since the early 1890s. The new long-term contract extends that relationship and signals that UP is planning for a significantly larger network, UP CEO Jim Vena directly linked the deal to the proposed Norfolk Southern merger, noting the partnership becomes more important as the railroad prepares to expand to a coast-to-coast system.

The investment happening in Pueblo right now we thought was interesting. Rocky Mountain Steel is putting more than $1 billion into a new long-rail mill at the site, expected to begin operations later this year. The mill will produce 328-foot rail sections versus the traditional 80-foot sections used today, resulting in approximately 80% fewer welds along the track. Fewer welds mean fewer failure points, lower maintenance costs, and better ride quality. The mill will be powered by a dedicated 1,800-acre solar farm, making it the world’s largest solar-powered steel mill when complete.

The deal also resolved an existing legal dispute: Union Pacific withdrew a previously filed lawsuit against Rocky Mountain Steel in Nebraska as part of the agreement. Steel at the Pueblo facility is produced by United Steelworkers union members.

A seven-year domestic rail supply agreement covering what may become a 50,000-mile transcontinental network is not routine procurement. In a market where steel tariffs are in effect and domestic manufacturing is a political priority, locking in a long-term U.S.-only supply deal is both strategically and politically smart. It is also a clear statement that Union Pacific is building for the long term regardless of how the merger review unfolds.

We are watching Class 1 Industrial Headcount

Class I railroads employed 115,080 workers in the United States in March 2026, a 0.23% increase from February 2026’s count of 114,811 but a -3.75% year-over-year decrease from March 2025’s total of 119,562, according to Surface Transportation Board data. 

Three of the six employment categories posted month-over-month increases between February and March 2026. These were Professional and Administrative, up 0.62% to 8,887 workers; Maintenance of Way and Structures, which increased 0.64% to 28,343 workers; and Transportation (train and engine), which increased 0.51% to 48,860 workers.

The categories that posted month-over-month decreases were Executives, officials, and staff assistants, down -0.41% to 8,079 workers; Maintenance of Equipment and Stores, down -0.72% to 16,234 workers; and Transportation (other than train and engine), down -1.31% to 4,677 workers.

Year-over-year, only one category posted an employment gain: Executives, officials, and staff assistants, up 2.76%.

Categories that registered year-over-year decreases in March 2026 were Professional and Administrative, down -7.96%; Maintenance of Way and Structures, down -0.53%; Maintenance of Equipment and Stores, down -4.79%; Transportation (other than train and engine), down -7.40%; and Transportation (train and engine), down -5.03%.

We are watching Key Economic Indicators

Producer Price Index

In March 2026, the Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.2% month-over-month, easing further from the 0.3% increase in February and indicating a gradual moderation in upstream price pressures. Core PPI (final demand less foods, energy, and trade services) increased 0.2% month over month, in line with February’s pace. The monthly increase was driven primarily by services, which rose 0.3%, while goods increased 0.1%. Within goods, food prices were relatively flat, while energy prices were mixed; goods less foods and energy increased 0.2%, suggesting steady but cooling core goods pricing. Within services, trade margins remained firm, while transportation and warehousing posted modest gains, and services less trade, transportation, and warehousing were subdued, pointing to more balanced services inflation.

In March 2026, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.3% month-over-month, moderating slightly from February’s gain, and was up approximately 2.8% year over year. Core CPI (all items less food and energy) rose 0.3% month-over-month and was up approximately 2.7% year-over-year. Shelter remained the largest contributor to the monthly increase. Food prices continued to rise modestly, while energy prices were mixed, contributing to a slightly softer headline figure compared to the prior month.

Industrial Output and Capacity Utilization

Manufacturing accounts for approximately 75% of total output. Manufacturing output in March declined 0.10% from February 2026, following a 0.20% increase in February.

Capacity utilization is a measure of how fully firms are using machinery and equipment. Capacity utilization decreased by 0.48 percentage points from February in March. 

Lease Bids

• 100, 21.9K 117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Midwest. For use in CO2 service. Period: 6 months.
• 30-50, 30K 117J Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Northeast. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year.
• 20-50, 4000-5000 Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Houston. For use in Urea, Potash, Ammonium Sulfate service. Period: 6-12 Months.
• 200, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of CSX or NS in Ohio. For use in Propylene service. Period: 18 Months.
• 30-50, 25.5K DOT 111 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Anywhere. For use in Asphalt service. Period: 1-3 Years.
• 40, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP in Eunice, LA. For use in Propane service. Period: 1 Year.
• 40, 29K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Midwest. For use in Veg Oil service. Period: 5 Year.
• 70, 30K DOT 117 Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Ohio. For use in Diesel service. Period: 3 months.
• 100, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. For use in Propane service. Period: 6 Months.
• 20, 117J Tanks located off of NS, CSX, CN, or CPKC in Various. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year. Need gauge rods.

Sales Bids

• 28, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP BN in Texas. For use in Cement service. Cement Gates needed.
• 20, 17K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in corn syrup service.
• 120, Various Open-Top Aluminum Rotary Gondolas located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in Sulphur service. Built 2004 or later.
• 30, 29K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in Chicago. For use in Veg Oil service.

Lease Offers

• 106, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 20, 31.8K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 86, 29K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline. Coiled and Insulated.
• 21, 6351 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 29, 6500 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 50, 20K DOT117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Moving. Last used in Styrene.
• 29, 25.5K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Cars are currently clean. Cars are currently clean.
• 90, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Corpus Christie. Last used in Diesel.
• 200, 340W DOT 112J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Multiple Locations. Last used in Propane and Butane. Cars are currently clean.
• 15, 6200CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 30, 6500CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Corpus Christie. Last used in Gasoline.
• 24, 21K Stainless Steel Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in SULFACTANT. Cars are currently clean.
• 34, 30K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in Veg Oil. Cars are currently clean.
• 117, 30K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline.
• 100, 28.4K DOT 117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Beaumont, TX. Cars are currently clean.

Sales Offers

• 50, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in TX. Last used in Multiple. Requal Due in 2025.
• 35, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Midwest. Last used in Sand.
• 25, 30K 117J Tanks located off of CSX in Jackson, TN. Last used in Fuels. Newly Requalified.

Call PFL today to discuss your needs and our availability and market reach. Whether you are looking to lease cars, lease out cars, buy cars, or sell cars call PFL today at 239-390-2885

Live Railcar Markets

PFL will be at the Following Conferences

The post PFL Railcar Report 4-20-2026 appeared first on PFL Petroleum Services LTD.

Jobs Update

• Initial jobless claims seasonally adjusted for the week ending April 4, 2026 came in at 219,000, versus the adjusted number of 203,000 people from the week prior, up 16,000 people week-over-week.

• Continuing jobless claims came in at 1,794,000, versus the adjusted number of 1,832,000 people from the week prior, down 38,000 week-over-week.

Stocks closed mixed on Friday of last week and higher week-over-week

The DOW closed lower on Friday of last week, down -269.23 points (-0.56%), closing out the week at 47,916.57, up 1,411.97 points week-over-week. The S&P 500 closed lower on Friday of last week, down -7.77 points (-0.11%), and closed out the week at 6,816.89, up 234.20 points week-over-week. The NASDAQ closed higher on Friday of last week, up 80.48 points (0.35%), and closed out the week at 22,902.89, up 1,023.71 points week-over-week.

In overnight trading, DOW futures traded lower and are expected to open at 47,873 this morning, down 256 points from Friday’s close.

Crude oil closed lower on Friday of last week and lower week-over-week

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed down -1.30 per barrel (-1.3%), to close at $96.57 on Friday of last week, and down $14.97 week-over-week. Brent crude closed down -0.72 per barrel (-0.8%), to close at $95.20, and down $13.83 week-over-week.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 3.1 million barrels week-over-week. At 464.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are 2% above the five-year average for this time of year.

One Exchange WCS (Western Canadian Select) for May delivery settled on Friday of last week at US$15.55 below the WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average). The implied value was US$79.61 per barrel.

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 1.6 million barrels week-over-week and are 3% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 3.1 million barrels week-over-week and are 5% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane/propylene inventories increased by 600,000 barrels week-over-week and are 71% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane prices closed at 76.2 cents per gallon on Friday of last week, up 3.8 cents per gallon week-over-week, but  down 11.8 cents year-over-year.

Overall, total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 1.3 million barrels week-over-week, during the week ending April 3, 2026.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.3 million barrels per day during the week ending April 3, 2026, a decrease of 130,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 6.6 million barrels per day, 9.1% more than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) averaged 571,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 152,000 barrels per day during the week ending April 3, 2026.

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 4.149 million barrels per day during the week ending April 3, 2026, an increase of 628,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil exports averaged 3.973 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.3 million barrels per day during the week ending April 3, 2026, which was 129,000 barrels per day less week-over-week.

WTI is poised to open at $104.45 this morning, up $7.88 from Friday’s close.

North American Rail Traffic

Week Ending April 8, 2026:

Total North American weekly rail volumes were down (-1.09%) in week 15, compared with the same week last year. Total Carloads for the week ending April 8, 2026 were 336,537, up (+0.81%) compared with the same week in 2025, while weekly Intermodal volume was 328,975, down (-2.97%) year over year. 7 of the AAR’s 11 major traffic categories posted year-over-year increases. The largest decrease came from Metallic Ores and Metals (-12.67%). The largest increase was Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+13.21%).

In the East, CSX’s total volumes were up (+1.42%), with the largest decrease coming from Metallic Ores and Metals (-6.78%), while the largest increase came from Grain (+24.34%). NS’s total volumes were down (-1.80%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+19.68%), while the largest decrease came from Nonmetallic Minerals (-9.92%).

In the West, BNSF’s total volumes were up (+3.56%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+23.21%), while the largest decrease came from Motor Vehicles and Parts (-10.74%). UP’s total volumes were down (-1.74%), with the largest increase coming from Other (+36.92%), while the largest decrease came from Intermodal Units (-8.97%).

In Canada, CN’s total volumes were down (-4.43%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+59.89%), while the largest decrease came from Metallic Ores and Metals (-25.73%). CPKCS’s total volumes were down (-19.99%), with the largest increase coming from Nonmetallic Minerals (+18.37%), while the largest decrease came from Forest Products (-66.12%).

Source Data: AAR – PFL Analytics

North American Rig Count Summary

Rig Count

North American rig count was down by -10 rigs week-over-week. The U.S. rig count was down by -3 rigs week-over-week, and down by -38 rigs year-over-year. The U.S. currently has 545 active rigs. Canada’s rig count was down by -7 rigs week-over-week and down by -3 rigs year-over-year. Canada currently has 135 active rigs. Overall, year-over-year we are down by -41 rigs collectively.

We are watching a few things out there for you:

We continue to Watch the Strait of Hormuz

The two-week ceasefire that briefly knocked WTI from $119/bl back to $94/bl last Wednesday is now in serious jeopardy. Peace talks held in Islamabad between Vice President JD Vance and Iranian negotiators collapsed Sunday after more than 21 hours at the table. The sticking points were non-negotiable on both sides: Washington demanded Iran give up uranium enrichment and reopen the strait without tolls; Tehran demanded permanent control of the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of all sanctions, and frozen asset releases. Vance left Pakistan saying the U.S. had put its best and final offer on the table. The American delegation departed without leaving anyone behind to continue talks.

Within hours of the talks collapsing, President Trump announced on Truth Social that the U.S. Navy would begin blockading the strait effective immediately, ordering the interdiction of any vessel that had paid Iran a toll for passage and threatening to destroy Iranian mines in the waterway. The U.S. Navy had already sent two guided-missile destroyers through the strait over the weekend for mine-clearing operations, the first American warships to transit since the war began six weeks ago. Iran’s IRGC responded that any military vessel approaching the strait would be treated as a ceasefire violation. The UK announced it is assembling a coalition with France to contribute minesweepers. One complicating wrinkle: Iran has reportedly lost track of some of the mines it planted, meaning even Iran cannot fully reopen the strait quickly regardless of any diplomatic agreement.

Analysts at Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy put the current supply shortfall at roughly 7 million barrels of crude and 4 million barrels of product per day not clearing the strait. A U.S. blockade adds Iranian export barrels on top of that. Prices that briefly pulled back on ceasefire hopes are heading higher again. For operators with existing crude and LPG rail capacity already in place in North American corridors, the case for keeping that infrastructure active through this period remains strong. No one is building new crude by rail capacity to chase this spike. The commitment required is five years minimum on both the equipment and the rail contracts, and the memories of the last CBR run are fresh. What matters is whether the cars and contracts already in place are working.

We Are Watching Crude Oil in Canada

Multiple Canadian crude grades hit all-time premium records last week as U.S. West Coast refiners scrambled to replace Middle Eastern medium sour supply they can no longer reliably source. Medium sweet Syncrude at Edmonton surged to $19.85-$20/bl over May CMA Nymex, a new record. Canadian light sweet Mixed Sweet at Edmonton reached $12-$12.65/bl over the benchmark, also a record. Light Sour Blend at Cromer, Manitoba, hit $7-$9.25/bl, topping its previous record set just nine days earlier on April 1. Canadian condensate at Fort Saskatchewan traded around $10.80/bl premium. The moves span every grade on the slate and are breaking records set just days earlier. The disruption in the Persian Gulf is repricing Canadian crude.

West Coast refiners built their crude slates around Middle Eastern medium sour grades that are now largely inaccessible. Competing alternatives like Guyanese and Brazilian medium grades have become expensive because European and Asian buyers are bidding them up simultaneously. That leaves Canadian barrels, and Trans Mountain is running close to capacity. The U.S. Gulf Coast sweet 3-2-1 crack spread averaged $35/bl in the first week of April, up from $20/bl a year earlier, which means refiners can absorb elevated feedstock costs and still print acceptable margins. Canadian heavy crude WCS at Hardisty is a different story, closing at $79.61/bl last for may delivery. The light grade premium story and the heavy grade discount story are running simultaneously, and they tell you a lot about what refiners actually need right now.

For CBR operators, Trans Mountain running near capacity on the light grade story is the key signal. Pipeline space fills first; rail handles the overflow and the spot volumes. The unit train rate from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast was $15.40/bl last week, and at current WCS prices and crack spreads, economics for moving incremental barrels by rail are closing. The Bakken unit train to Philadelphia is roughly at $9.75/bl. PFL is tracking crude movement economics across all corridors as the Hormuz situation evolves.

We continue to watch Fertilizer

The Strait of Hormuz closure landed at the worst possible moment for the fertilizer market. The Middle East accounts for roughly a third of all seaborne fertilizer trade and close to half of global urea exports. With traffic through the strait collapsed, prices for nitrogen fertilizers have moved sharply: urea is up approximately 50% since the war began in late February, anhydrous ammonia up around 20%. Saudi Arabia, the third-largest exporter of DAP and MAP phosphate fertilizers, remains effectively stranded behind the closure, along with ammonia and sulfur supplies from Qatar and Iran. This is hitting the market at spring planting season in the Northern Hemisphere, the worst possible timing for farmers already working with compressed margins.

Anhydrous ammonia moves almost exclusively by rail or pipeline in North America, with pressurized tank cars the primary mode for getting NH3 from production and import terminals to agricultural distribution points. Spring is already peak season for AA cars; a 20% price spike on top of tight supply means every available car is working. North American producers, particularly Nutrien and CF Industries, are in strong shape with domestic supply largely insulated from the Hormuz disruption. Potash flowing south from Saskatchewan still represents 90% of U.S. imports and is largely unaffected by the conflict. But dry fertilizer movements in covered hoppers and pressurized cars for ammonia and LPG-derived feedstocks are all seeing elevated demand at the same time.

Farmers caught in the middle are making hard calls. Some are reportedly shifting acreage from corn to soybeans to reduce nitrogen application requirements. If that trend holds, it has downstream implications for ethanol demand and corn carloads later in the season. The full supply chain consequence of the Hormuz closure will not be visible in planting data for months yet, but rail car demand for fertilizer inputs is running hot right now. Stay tuned to PFL for further details, we are watching this one closely. 

We Are Watching Class 1 Performance

The BN seems to be not performing well.  As it relates to crude, BNSF dwell time increased 116% versus the prior four-week period, rising from 9.3 hours to 20.1 hours. Loaded crude cars not moved in more than 48 hours jumped 313%, from an average of 5.4 cars to 22.3. Trains held short more than doubled. Speed slipped 4.6%. For ethanol, loaded cars not moving more than 48 hours rose 85.7%, from 121.4 to 225.5 cars on average. These are not subtle shifts. This is a network that absorbed a meaningful service degradation across both commodity types over a single four-week window.

Context matters here. BNSF is also investing heavily, with a $3.6 billion 2026 capital plan covering over 400 miles of rail replacement and 2.5 million tie replacements across the network. Track work and maintenance activity during this period is the most likely driver of the congestion spike rather than a structural collapse in operating practice. CPKC, by contrast, improved across several crude metrics in the same period, and CSX showed crude dwell and cars-not-moving improving. Union Pacific’s loaded crude cars not moved more than 48 hours rose 88.5%, so BNSF is not alone, but the scale of the BNSF numbers stands out. Total tank cars on line across all six Class I carriers rose slightly to 254,530 from 252,173 four weeks prior, a 0.9% increase, which suggests fleet utilization remains firm.

For shippers moving crude or ethanol on BNSF, particularly unit trains where dwell and car velocity directly affect return cycles, this is a period that warrants close attention. Cars sitting at terminals are not turning, and slower turns mean you effectively need more cars in your fleet to maintain the same throughput. PFL is tracking network performance and can help customers assess whether their current fleet size is adequate, given current velocity data. 

We Are Watching the Railway Safety Act

Last week the NTSB released its preliminary report on the March 18 Union Pacific derailment near Richmond, Texas. The train, running westbound from Houston to Eagle Pass and measuring over 10,000 feet long, derailed 24 cars on the Glidden Subdivision. Of those, 18 were tank cars carrying hazardous materials. Seven tank cars breached, collectively releasing approximately 120,000 gallons of ethanol. Two additional tank cars of liquified petroleum gas were among the derailed equipment, but did not breach. No injuries were reported, and UP assessed damages at approximately $3.6 million. The preliminary report notes clear weather and no precipitation at the time of the incident.

The timing of the report is notable. The bipartisan Railway Safety Act of 2026 was introduced in the U.S. Senate last month and is working through the legislative process. The bill includes strengthened tank car standards, enhanced requirements for high-hazard trains, a mandatory minimum of two FRA-certified crew members on every freight train, new wayside defect detection standards, and expanded emergency response planning requirements for hazmat movements. It also takes another run at the DOT-111 and CPC-1232 phase-out question, which has been contested for years. CPC-1232 lease rates are currently $800 per car per month for 1-5 year term, and any accelerated phase-out mandate would reshape the secondary market for those cars materially.  Quite a few shippers have already scrapped or retrofitted many of these cars  to 117R’s, but there are still quite a few out there.

Agricultural shippers have already raised concerns with Congress about provisions they say could limit network flexibility, including train length restrictions and mandatory manual inspection requirements that could slow the adoption of automated inspection technology. That tension, between safety advocates pushing for faster regulatory action and shippers worried about operational constraints, will define the legislative debate. The Richmond derailment, while contained and without injuries, gives advocates on both sides’ fresh material. PFL is monitoring the Railway Safety Act’s progress and its potential implications for tank car fleet composition and lease economics. 

We Are Watching Left Wing Canadian Prime Minister Carney

The Carney government and Alberta missed the April 1 MOU deadline on not one item, but two. The November memorandum of understanding between Ottawa and Premier Danielle Smith set April 1 as the target for finalizing carbon pricing equivalency and a trilateral agreement with the Oilsands Alliance on the Pathways carbon capture project. Neither is done. Carney told reporters he felt good about the progress. Smith said she hoped to land the carbon pricing deal in the next few days and complete the Pathways agreement before the end of April. Meanwhile, Syncrude was trading at $20/bl over benchmark, the crack spread on the U.S. Gulf Coast averaged $35/bl, and the world was offering Canada a window to move more of its oil to markets that desperately want it.

The Pathways project is the centrepiece of the pipeline deal: a carbon capture network linking over 20 oilsands facilities to underground storage near Cold Lake. Carney has called it a necessary condition for approving a new bitumen pipeline. But without the carbon pricing agreement finalized, the Oilsands Alliance will not sign the Pathways MOU, and without Pathways, the pipeline file does not advance. Smith has set a July 1 internal deadline to submit the new pipeline proposal to the federal Major Projects Office, though she has said it could come earlier. British Columbia has not been formally engaged on a pipeline route through its territory, and B.C. Premier David Eby has made his position clear on the matter. What Carney has managed to produce is a political framework with deadlines that keep slipping and dependencies that stack on top of each other.

A new line to B.C. tidewater is years away under the best-case scenario, and the Hormuz disruption has just demonstrated that price spikes happen faster than infrastructure gets built. Rail is not a consolation prize for producers who cannot get pipeline space. It is the flexible egress that keeps Alberta crude moving when the market moves faster than Ottawa can negotiate. Looks to us it: is the same old, same old.

Some one needs to inform the Canadian Prime Minister that the world is not getting rid of crude oil anytime soon – he has the responsibility to provide this resource to the free world. Every barrel of crude oil tells a story. We thought we should share the below visual with you: 

We Are Watching Bridger

Last week, Bridger Pipeline released details on a proposed crude oil pipeline project that would move barrels from the U.S.-Canada border to Wyoming, and the scale of what is being proposed deserves a close look. The proposed 36-inch line would span approximately 647 miles, starting in Phillips County, Montana, crossing eastern Montana, and terminating at the Guernsey hub in Wyoming. Initial capacity is designed at 550,000 barrels per day, expandable to 1.13 million barrels per day with additional pump stations. Much of the route runs parallel to existing pipeline corridors, and the project may integrate assets from the defunct Keystone XL. The application also shows potential tie-ins to the Bakken shale oil field in North Dakota, giving regional producers a new competitive egress option south to one of the most connected crude hubs in the country.

The project cost has been pegged at $4.5 million per mile for the 435 miles planned in Montana, totaling approximately $1.96 billion for that segment alone. Applying the same rate across the full 647-mile length puts total project cost closer to $2.9 billion. On the Canadian side, South Bow’s proposed Prairie Connector project would move crude from Hardisty, Alberta, to the U.S. border using partially built Keystone XL assets. South Bow closed an open season for 450,000 b/d of binding long-term commitments last week. The regulatory clock is now running on Bridger’s side: the Bureau of Land Management and Montana Department of Environmental Quality are conducting public scoping through May 1, with in-person meetings held last week in Glasgow and Miles City. A final environmental decision is targeted for May 2027, with construction to follow if approved.

That timeline is the key takeaway for rail shippers. A final federal decision in May 2027 means construction starting no earlier than mid-to-late 2027 at best, and construction is estimated at 12-18 months. The line is not moving a barrel before late 2028 or early 2029 under an optimistic scenario. Crude-by-rail out of Montana and the Bakken remains the only flexible egress option through the entire permitting and construction window. The Guernsey hub connection is worth watching longer term. Strong downstream pipeline access to Cushing and beyond means a line of this capacity would meaningfully reshape crude flow patterns across the northern Rockies and Midwest when it eventually comes online. That day is years away. Call PFL at 239-390-2885 if you are moving crude by rail in the Montana or Bakken corridor and want to talk through fleet positioning as this project develops.

We Are Watching New Jersey 

Last week the New Jersey Department of Transportation awarded 11 grants totaling $26.3 million through its Rail Freight Assistance Program for fiscal year 2026. The program covers up to 90% of eligible project costs, with recipients required to maintain freight service on improved lines for at least 10 years after completion. Projects are selected competitively, with emphasis on port commerce connectivity, closing gaps in freight rail access to New Jersey’s port facilities, and upgrading track to a 286,000-pound load-carrying capacity. New Jersey has invested nearly $250 million in its freight rail network through this program over the past eight years. Last week’s round continues that commitment.

The 286,000-pound load standard matters more than the headline number. Short line track that cannot handle that load is off-limits for a large portion of today’s tank car and covered hopper fleet. Every mile upgraded to that standard opens new routing options and makes rail a viable competitor to truck for shippers who currently have no practical alternative. New Jersey sits at the center of one of the busiest freight corridors in North America. The Port of Newark and Port Elizabeth handle more container volume than any other East Coast port complex, and the short line network connecting those ports to inland chemical, food, and consumer goods manufacturers is critical infrastructure. When that network deteriorates, shippers lose options. These upgrades add them back.

This is the kind of steady, unglamorous infrastructure work that does not make headlines the way a pipeline announcement does, but it is exactly what keeps short line rail viable as a competitive alternative to trucks for regional shippers. PFL serves shippers across the Northeast corridor and monitors network capacity as these upgrades come online.

 We Are Watching Key Economic Indicators

Purchasing Managers Index (PMI)

The Institute for Supply Management releases two PMI reports – one covering manufacturing and the other covering services. These reports are based on surveys of supply managers across the country and track changes in business activity. A reading above 50% on the index indicates expansion, while a reading below 50% signifies contraction, with a faster pace of change the farther the reading is from 50.

The Manufacturing PMI in March 2026 was 52.7%, slightly above February’s 52.4% and marking the third consecutive month in expansion territory following an extended period of contraction.

On the Services PMI side, the most recent reading is 54.0% (March 2026), down from 56.1% in February but still indicating solid expansion in the services sector, albeit at a slower pace.

Consumer Spending

In February 2026, total consumer spending in the U.S. rose by a preliminary 0.4% month-over-month. Adjusted for inflation, the increase was approximately 0.2%, reflecting more modest real growth compared to the strong gains seen earlier in the year. Spending on services increased by 0.6% (not adjusted for inflation), continuing to lead overall consumption, while spending on goods rose by 0.2%, indicating more subdued demand in goods-related categories important for transportation providers like railroads.

Retail sales, which account for around 25% of consumer spending, increased by 0.6% in February, following a softer January reading. Economists suggest that while consumer spending remains resilient, higher interest rates and tighter financial conditions are beginning to temper the pace of growth compared to prior periods.

Lease Bids

• 100, 21.9K 117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Midwest. For use in CO2 service. Period: 6 months.
• 30-50, 30K 117J Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Northeast. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year.
• 20-50, 4000-5000 Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Houston. For use in Urea, Potash, Ammonium Sulfate service. Period: 6-12 Months.
• 200, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of CSX or NS in Ohio. For use in Propylene service. Period: 18 Months.
• 30-50, 25.5K DOT 111 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Anywhere. For use in Asphalt service. Period: 1-3 Years.
• 40, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP in Eunice, LA. For use in Propane service. Period: 1 Year.
• 40, 29K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Midwest. For use in Veg Oil service. Period: 5 Year.
• 70, 30K DOT 117 Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Ohio. For use in Diesel service. Period: 3 months.
• 100, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. For use in Propane service. Period: 6 Months.
• 20, 117J Tanks located off of NS, CSX, CN, or CPKC in Various. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year. Need gauge rods.

Sales Bids

• 28, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP BN in Texas. For use in Cement service. Cement Gates needed.
• 20, 17K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in corn syrup service.
• 120, Various Open-Top Aluminum Rotary Gondolas located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in Sulphur service. Built 2004 or later.
• 30, 29K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in Chicago. For use in Veg Oil service.

Lease Offers

• 106, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 20, 31.8K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 86, 29K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline. Coiled and Insulated.
• 21, 6351 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 29, 6500 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 50, 20K DOT117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Moving. Last used in Styrene.
• 29, 25.5K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Cars are currently clean. Cars are currently clean.
• 90, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Corpus Christie. Last used in Diesel.
• 200, 340W DOT 112J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Multiple Locations. Last used in Propane and Butane. Cars are currently clean.
• 15, 6200CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 30, 6500CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Corpus Christie. Last used in Gasoline.
• 24, 21K Stainless Steel Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in SULFACTANT. Cars are currently clean.
• 34, 30K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in Veg Oil. Cars are currently clean.
• 117, 30K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline.
• 100, 28.4K DOT 117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Beaumont, TX. Cars are currently clean.

Sales Offers

• 50, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in TX. Last used in Multiple. Requal Due in 2025.
• 35, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Midwest. Last used in Sand.
• 25, 30K 117J Tanks located off of CSX in Jackson, TN. Last used in Fuels. Newly Requalified.

Call PFL today to discuss your needs and our availability and market reach. Whether you are looking to lease cars, lease out cars, buy cars, or sell cars call PFL today at 239-390-2885

Live Railcar Markets

PFL will be at the Following Conferences

The post PFL Railcar Report 4-13-2026 appeared first on PFL Petroleum Services LTD.

Jobs Update

• Initial jobless claims seasonally adjusted for the week ending March 28, 2026 came in at 202,000, versus the adjusted number of 211,000 people from the week prior, down 9,000 people week-over-week.

• Continuing jobless claims came in at 1,841,000, versus the adjusted number of 1,816,000 people from the week prior, up 25,000 week-over-week.

Stocks closed mixed on Thursday of last week, but higher week-over-week

The DOW closed lower on Thursday of last week, down -61.14 points (-0.13%), closing out the week at 46,504.60, up 1,337.96 points week-over-week. The S&P 500 closed higher on Thursday of last week, up +7.37 points (0.11%), and closed out the week at 6,582.69, up +213.84 points week-over-week. The NASDAQ closed higher on Thursday of last week, up 38.23 points (0.18%), and closed out the week at 21,879.18, up +930.82 points week-over-week.

In overnight trading, DOW futures traded higher and are expected to open at 46,731 this morning, down 1 point from last Thursday’s close.

Crude oil closed higher on Thursday of last week and mixed week-over-week

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed up $11.42 per barrel (11.4%), to close at $111.54 on Thursday of last week, and up $11.90 week-over-week. Brent crude closed up $7.87 per barrel (7.8%), to close at $109.03, but down $3.54 week-over-week.

One Exchange WCS (Western Canadian Select) for May delivery settled on Thursday of last week at US$14.50  below the WTI-CMA (West Texas Intermediate – Calendar Month Average). The implied value was US$80.66 per barrel.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 5.5 million barrels week-over-week. At 461.6 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are 0.1% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 600,000 barrels week-over-week and are 4% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 2.1 million barrels week-over-week and are 3% below the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane/propylene inventories increased by 4.1 million barrels week-over-week and are 71% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Propane prices closed at 72.4 cents per gallon on Friday of last week, flat week-over-week, but down 18.1 cents year-over-year.

Overall, total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 2.1 million barrels week-over-week, during the week ending March 27, 2026.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.5 million barrels per day during the week ending March 27, 2026, a decrease of 10,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 6.6 million barrels per day, 12.8% more than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) averaged 502,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 117,000 barrels per day during the week ending March 27, 2026.

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 3.521 million barrels per day during the week ending March 27, 2026, an increase of 199,000 barrels per day week-over-week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil exports averaged 3.794 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.4 million barrels per day during the week ending March 27, 2026, which was 220,000 barrels per day less week-over-week.

WTI is poised to open at $111.49 this morning, down 5 cents from Friday’s close.

North American Rail Traffic

Week Ending April 1, 2026:

Total North American weekly rail volumes were down (-1.22%) in week 14, compared with the same week last year. Total Carloads for the week ending April 1, 2026 were 344,274, down (-1.05%) compared with the same week in 2025, while weekly Intermodal volume was 339,845, down (-1.39%) year over year. 6 of the AAR’s 11 major traffic categories posted year-over-year increases. The largest decrease came from Forest Products (-14.84%). The largest increase was Other (+19.69%).

In the East, CSX’s total volumes were up (+4.99%), with the largest decrease coming from Metallic Ores and Metals (-12.10%), while the largest increase came from Other (+32.61%). NS’s total volumes were down (-0.27%), with the largest increase coming from Petroleum & Petroleum Products (+34.99%), while the largest decrease came from Metallic Ores and Metals (-8.37%).

In the West, BNSF’s total volumes were up (+1.27%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+6.35%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-20.53%). UP’s total volumes were down (-1.92%), with the largest increase coming from Other (+21.23%), while the largest decrease came from Intermodal Units (-8.71%).

In Canada, CN’s total volumes were down (-4.36%), with the largest increase coming from Grain (+27.47%), while the largest decrease came from Coal (-20.53%). CPKCS’s total volumes were down (-28.65%), with the largest decrease coming from Forest Products (-69.66%).

Source Data: AAR – PFL Analytics

North American Rig Count Summary

Rig Count

North American rig count was down by -6 rigs week-over-week. The US rig count was up by +5 rigs week-over-week, but down by -42 rigs year-over-year. The U.S. currently has 548 active rigs. Canada’s rig count was down by -11 rigs week-over-week and down by -11 rigs year-over-year. Canada currently has 142 active rigs. Overall, year-over-year we are down by -53 rigs collectively. 

International rig count which is reported monthly was down by -54 rigs month-over-month and down by -37 rigs year-over-year. Internationally there are 1058 active rigs.

We are watching a few things out there for you:

We are Watching Petroleum Carloads

The four-week rolling average of petroleum carloads carried on the six largest North American railroads fell to 29,367 from 29,853 which was a decrease of -486 rail cars week-over-week. Canadian volumes were lower. CN’s shipments were lower by 0.5% week-over-week, CPKC’s volumes were lower by -1.0% week-over-week. U.S. shipments were mostly lower. The NS had the largest percentage decrease and was down by -4.0%. The BN was the sole gainer and was up by +10.0% week-over-week.

We Are Watching Hormuz

Five weeks in, the market has stopped waiting for a quick resolution. WTI spot prices at the Texas coast surged to levels not seen since late 2022 last week, with NYMEX futures holding above $100 per barrel for the first time in years. The average American crossed $4 per gallon at the pump for the first time in nearly four years. The broader Brent complex is trading in the low $110s. Every lever the Trump Administration has pulled, including an authorized drawdown of 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a 60-day Jones Act waiver to ease domestic crude movements, and an emergency E15 fuel waiver, does not do anything that would solve the problem of a long term closure of the Strait.

Last week’s Iran-Oman announcement that the two countries are drafting a “monitoring protocol” for strait transit briefly rallied markets, which tells you more about how desperately traders want a resolution than about actual progress. What Iran announced is a framework for controlling who passes, not a reopening. The IRGC checkpoint near Larak Island has been rerouting permitted vessels through a longer, supervised corridor since mid-March. As of last Thursday, fewer than 15 vessels per day were transiting openly, down from roughly 138 pre-war. The week brought two more attacks: an Iranian drone struck the fully loaded Kuwaiti VLCC Al Salmi at anchor off Dubai last Tuesday, and a Qatar Energy tanker took two Iranian cruise missiles north of Ras Laffan last Wednesday. Trump told allies to get their own oil. OPEC+ agreed ‌on Sunday to raise its oil output quotas by 206,000 barrels per day for May, a modest rise that will largely exist on paper as its key members are unable to raise production due to the U.S. – Israeli war with Iran.  The President will have a press conference at 1:00 PM today and threatened over the weekend to blow up some power plants and bridges tomorrow if Iran does not open the Strait of Hormuz.

The Western Canadian Select (WCS) – West Texas Intermediate (WTI) differential is the story for crude by rail right now. It has blown out to levels that put incremental rail economics firmly in the black for Canadian heavy crude that cannot access pipeline capacity, with the unit train rate from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast leaving meaningful headroom at current differentials. Loading and readily available cars and producers reluctant to commit to long term lease rates seems to be the why we are not seeing immediate crude by rail movements. Asia-Pacific refiners scrambling to replace disrupted Mideast grades are bidding aggressively for WTI at the Texas coast, pushing physical prices well above futures and widening the spread further. The Asian destination share of US April crude export cargoes is approaching 50%, up from 32% in March.

The SPR drawdown continues in parallel. Last week the DOE launched a second round seeking bids on 10 million barrels of sour crude from the Bryan Mound site in Texas, with bids due today. The first round covered 45.2 million barrels. Neither round put a dent in Hormuz, and none of it addresses what sits in the ground in western Canada, waiting on pipeline capacity that Ottawa has spent years failing to approve.

We Are Watching the Fertilizer Crunch

Five weeks into the Hormuz closure, the global fertilizer supply chain is approaching a genuine supply emergency, and the North American spring planting window has no slack in its system. The Middle East supplies roughly a fifth of global ammonia trade and nearly half of global seaborne sulfur trade. Most of it is currently trapped. Ammonia prices have risen by approximately $170 per ton since late February, with Middle East FOB levels approaching $650 per ton. Sulfur prices are up nearly a third from pre-war levels, with spot offers reaching their highest since 2008. The supply loss is structural, not merely logistical, and will persist well beyond any ceasefire. Loaded vessels across Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Bahrain sit anchored in the Gulf waiting for clearance that has not come. The Ras Laffan gas processing complex in Qatar sustained direct damage last week and will operate at reduced levels after the strait reopens. Key production facilities across the region are down not primarily because of physical strikes, but because tankers cannot exit. Replacement supply from Australia, Trinidad, and Algeria is running below what markets had assumed, and new U.S. Gulf ammonia capacity coming online this spring may offset perhaps one million tons of the roughly four million tons of annual Middle East production currently inaccessible, but it will not fill the hole. Prices are now approaching levels where demand destruction at the farm level becomes unavoidable

For North American agriculture, the timing is brutal. Corn belt planting decisions are being made now, and farmers are making them against nitrogen fertilizer prices at generational highs while crop price economics have simultaneously deteriorated. University of Illinois researchers published guidance last week recommending farmers reconsider application rates at current price levels. Rail cars carrying anhydrous ammonia, UAN solution, and dry fertilizers are in peak seasonal demand, and compressed supply windows mean delivery timing matters more than ever. This is not a market where you catch a missed window. PFL works with fertilizer shippers to structure car capacity through seasonal peaks, including the short-term flexibility that a disrupted supply year demands.  PFL’s advice – plant more soya beans if you can!

We Are Watching BP Whiting

The BP Whiting refinery lockout entered its third week last week with no resolution and rising political attention on both sides. Indiana Governor Mike Braun visited workers on the picket line. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro published a commentary calling on BP to settle, arguing that most of the U.S. oil industry has already accepted the pattern contract set by Marathon earlier this season and that a refinery of Whiting’s strategic importance should not be the industry outlier prolonging a labor standoff. BP has not moved.

The Whiting refinery processes 440,000 barrels of crude oil per day and is the largest inland refinery in the United States, supplying gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel to the broader Midwest, including the Chicago and Detroit metro areas. A judge last week weighed whether the more than 800 locked-out United Steelworkers Local 7-1 members could be ordered back to work; no ruling has been issued. The dispute centers on BP’s demand to eliminate more than 100 union positions, cut pay across nearly all classifications, and lock in a six-year contract. Workers voted to reject BP’s last, best, and final offer by 98.3% with 94% turnout. The union’s position is direct: a contingency team running a century-old, 440,000 b/d complex cannot sustain that output indefinitely without incident. BP maintains operations have been uninterrupted.

For anyone watching Midwest crude throughput and fuel supply, a prolonged lockout at Whiting is a vulnerability that nobody needs right now. Diesel is trading above $5 per gallon nationally. A production stumble at the Midwest’s largest refinery tightens regional fuel supply at exactly the moment there is no slack to absorb it. The last time BP locked out workers at Whiting was 2015; that dispute ran 101 days. PFL is monitoring and will update readers as court proceedings and negotiations develop.

We Are Watching Left Wing Canadian Prime Minister Carney

The November memorandum of understanding between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith set April 1 as the target date for a four point foundational agreement required before a new bitumen pipeline to tidewater can be greenlighted. Two of the four points are done, agreements in principle on methane emissions and project assessment processes. Two are not: an industrial carbon pricing deal between Ottawa and Alberta, and a separate MOU with the Oilsands Alliance, the consortium of major oil sands producers that Carney has explicitly named as a necessary condition for any new pipeline. The April 1 deadline has come and gone.

Last week Carney told reporters in Quebec that he feels good about the progress and wants to get it right. Smith says she hopes to have the carbon pricing deal wrapped in the next few days and the Alliance agreement done before the end of April. Alberta has given itself a July 1 deadline to submit a pipeline application to Ottawa’s Major Projects Office. This is a Left-Wing government running out of runway on a deal it signed with Alberta with great fanfare five months ago. Getting it right is not a construction timeline. Getting it right is a political strategy. And the MOU itself requires that any new pipeline cannot begin transmitting bitumen until the first phase of a major carbon capture project is operational, a project for which the major oil sands companies have not yet made a final investment decision on because of the Federal government itself.

The private sector is not waiting. South Bow’s open season for the Prairie Connector pipeline closed last Monday, soliciting binding long-term commitments for 450,000 barrels per day of capacity from Hardisty, Alberta, to Cushing, Oklahoma, and Gulf coast destinations. Smith suggested the project could eventually scale to 750,000 b/d. South Bow has 60 days to review binding commercial interest. Separately, privately held Bridger Pipeline has filed plans for a competing 550,000 b/d southbound line through Montana. Together, these two proposals represent more than 1.2 million barrels per day of potential new capacity being driven by private capital and commercial logic while Ottawa negotiates carbon pricing. Hormuz has made the case that Alberta cannot afford to wait on Ottawa and Carney. Alberta is going to hit a wall on pipeline timelines regardless of what happens in Ottawa, and the window to act is right now.

In other left wing Carney news, the Government of Canada started buying guns back off their residents on April 1, 2026 under a voluntary program to turn them in.  If you don’t turn them in, they are going to come to your door and collect them according to certain media outlets and the Government of Canada itself.  Alberta and Saskatchewan are not participating as well as certain police forces that are not agreeing to cooperate. Canada does not have the second amendment right – we will have to see how this plays out.

We Are Watching Ethanol

The EPA issued an emergency Reid Vapor Pressure waiver last week that takes effect May 1, allowing nationwide sales of E15 gasoline and temporarily lifting the summer blend restrictions that normally apply across roughly half the country through September. The agency also suspended federal enforcement of state boutique fuel requirements, effectively creating a single national gasoline pool with 9% to 15% ethanol content. The waiver is explicitly tied to the Iran conflict and the run-up in pump prices. As of last week, E15 was averaging 28 cents per gallon below regular gasoline at stations where it is available, an 8.6% discount at the pump. The Renewable Fuels Association expects the initial May 20 expiration to be extended well into summer.

California’s own market is shifting at the same time. Data published last month showed that Q3 2025 marked the first quarterly deficit in California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard credit bank in years, reversing a persistent surplus that had kept LCFS credit prices low. With the credit bank now drawing down rather than building, the economics improve from two directions at once: recovering LCFS credit values on rail-delivered Midwest ethanol into California, and an E15-driven demand lift broadening the national market for Midwest production. California imports the substantial majority of its Ethanol by unit train, and a tightening LCFS market means the credit premium supporting those deliveries is recovering. The E15 waiver drives demand broadly; LCFS tightening drives demand specifically into California. Both move ethanol rail volumes in the same direction.

Ethanol at Chicago closed at $2.00 per gallon on Thursday of last week, with unit train rates from Omaha to the California valleys running around 27.7 cents per gallon.  A rising LCFS credit market is good for ethanol, renewable diesel, biodiesel and rail.  But bad for anyone that lives in California through higher fuel costs.  PFL helps ethanol shippers structure car capacity across the Midwest-to-West-Coast corridor, including unit train solutions that keep velocity up and delivered cost per gallon competitive.

We Are Watching the UP and the NS

The proposed merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, filed with the Surface Transportation Board in December, drew a sharp response last week. A coalition representing roughly 23,000 residents in Houston’s East End filed comments with the STB warning that the merger would worsen what is already the highest level of freight rail congestion of any U.S. city. Union Pacific controls approximately 95% of Houston’s rail trackage. The merger application itself projects a 36% increase in daily train traffic in one Houston subdivision within five years. UP must file an updated application with the STB by April 30, 2026; the board ruled in January that its initial submission was incomplete.

This merger would create the first U.S. transcontinental railroad, covering roughly 55,000 miles and handling about half of all U.S. freight traffic. It will be the first major Class I merger subjected to the STB’s 2001 rules requiring applicants to demonstrate that consolidation enhances, rather than merely preserves, competitive shipping options. UP and NS argue the combination cuts transit times by 24 to 48 hours and drives efficiency gains that lower costs for shippers. Critics, including commodity shippers and several members of Congress, are less convinced.

For crude shippers, this is not a theoretical concern. Houston handles massive crude export volumes through major terminals at the center of the U.S. export complex and adding 36% more train traffic to a city that federal data already identifies as the most congested rail hub in the country may make an already congested system worse. The STB review is multi-year and a decision is not imminent, but the competitive dynamics of a post-merger rail network will shape long-term shipping economics for anyone using the Gulf Coast as a crude export or distribution hub. PFL will continue to watch this one.

We are Watching Key Economic Indicators

Unemployment Rate

On April 3, 2026, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 178,000 in March 2026, reflecting a rebound in hiring following the prior month’s decline.

According to the BLS, 2025’s net new job gains were revised significantly lower following annual benchmark revisions, indicating weaker hiring trends than previously estimated. The official unemployment rate declined to 4.3% in March, down from 4.4% in February, suggesting a modest stabilization in labor market conditions, despite ongoing softness.  The good news in the report was the continued decline in government jobs and an increase in manufacturing jobs, a trend that we will hopefully see continue.

Consumer Confidence

The Index of Consumer Sentiment from the University of Michigan decreased from 56.6 in February to 55.5 in March.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index increased from 91 in February to 91.8 in March.

Lease Bids

• 100, 21.9K 117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Midwest. For use in CO2 service. Period: 6 months.
• 30-50, 30K 117J Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Northeast. For use in C5 service. Period: 1 year.
• 20-50, 4000-5000 Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Houston. For use in Urea, Potash, Ammonium Sulfate service. Period: 6-12 months.
• 200, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of CSX or NS in Ohio. For use in Propylene service. Period: 18 Months.
• 30-50, 25.5K DOT 111 Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Anywhere. For use in Asphalt service. Period: 1-3 Years.
• 40, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP in Eunice, LA. For use in Propane service. Period: 1 Year.
• 40, 29K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Midwest. For use in Veg Oil service. Period: 5 Year.
• 70, 30K DOT 117 Tanks located off of NS or CSX in Ohio. For use in Diesel service. Period: 3 months.
• 100, 33K Pressure Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. For use in Propane service. Period: 6 Months.

Sales Bids

• 28, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP BN in Texas. For use in Cement service. Cement Gates needed.
• 20, 17K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in corn syrup service.
• 120, Various Open-Top Aluminum Rotary Gondolas located off of various class 1s in various locations. For use in Sulphur service. Built 2004 or later.
• 30, 29K DOT111 Tanks located off of various class 1s in Chicago. For use in Veg Oil service.

Lease Offers

• 106, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 20, 31.8K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Diesel.
• 86, 29K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline. Coiled and Insulated.
• 21, 6351 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 29, 6500 Covered Hoppers located off of CN in Wisconsin. Last used in DDG. Available until February 2027.
• 50, 20K DOT117J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Moving. Last used in Styrene.
• 29, 25.5K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Cars are currently clean. Cars are currently clean.
• 90, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Corpus Christie. Last used in Diesel.
• 200, 340W DOT 112J Tanks located off of All Class 1s in Multiple Locations. Last used in Propane and Butane. Cars are currently clean.
• 15, 6200CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 30, 6500CF Covered Hoppers located off of All Class 1s in Wisconsin. Last used in Plastic. Cars are currently clean.
• 50, 30K DOT117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Corpus Christie. Last used in Gasoline.
• 24, 21K Stainless Steel Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in SULFACTANT. Cars are currently clean.
• 34, 30K DOT 111 Tanks located off of UP in Texas / Mexico Border. Last used in Veg Oil. Cars are currently clean.
• 117, 30K DOT117R Tanks located off of UP or BN in Texas. Last used in Gasoline.
• 100, 28.4K DOT 117J Tanks located off of UP or BN in Beaumont, TX. Cars are currently clean.

Sales Offers

• 50, 31.8K CPC1232 Tanks located off of UP or BN in TX. Last used in Multiple. Requal Due in 2025.
• 35, 3400CF Covered Hoppers located off of UP or BN in Midwest. Last used in Sand.
• 25, 30K 117J Tanks located off of CSX in Jackson, TN. Last used in Fuels. Newly Requalified.

Call PFL today to discuss your needs and our availability and market reach. Whether you are looking to lease cars, lease out cars, buy cars, or sell cars call PFL today at 239-390-2885

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