Rail Projects Boosting Oil Flow to California Refineries

California, the third-biggest refining state in the U.S., is about to see a flood of oil by rail from places such as Canada and North Dakota as suppliers seek to tap a market isolated from the rest of the country.

The Western U.S. may bring 500,000 barrels of light oil by rail a day in 2015 as the region’s refiners seek to replace shrinking output in California and Alaska and more costly foreign imports, Mark Smith, Tesoro Corp.’s vice president of development, supply and logistics, said at a conference yesterday in Glendale, California. California refineries can run