The rail yard is located in the Northern section of the Philadelphia Energy Solutions complex. Both CSX Transportation, a Class I railroad in the United States, and PES own sections of this area. In 2013 PES received $25 million in state subsidies, approximately half went to building out the North Rail Yard. At that time, Bakken Shale was producing a lot of cheap oil, but there were not many pipelines to take it to major refineries. Refineries with rail capacity and relative proximity to extraction sites had the advantage for getting cheap domestic oil. This was the impetus for PES taking over the refinery. A few other companies in the area built oil terminals or started taking deliveries by rail. PES was largest consuming about 20% of Bakken output at some points. It is important to note that not all of the oil went to PES directly, some went to other terminals first and came to PES by pipeline or barge.
