Historically, Central Crude's business strategy has been to align our purchasing and transportation business with the needs of refinery end-users in areas surrounding our assets.
Over time, our low overhead and moderate operating costs have positioned the company to profitably own and operate additional resources. As large integrated companies focused more on high volume and mainline transportation, Central Crude purchased a number of their smaller gathering systems and explored new markets for our trucks and pipelines.
While honing our expertise in developing and building new pipelines or other facilities to meet our customer's needs, we continually evaluate gathering pipelines, barge terminals and truck injection stations that may be too small or no longer strategic for other companies.
Over the past ten years, the company has acquired four new gathering systems from larger corporations, as well as built a new tank at our Gillis-English Bayou terminal, enabling us to expand our own crude oil operations.
In late 2009, Central Crude entered into an agreement with the Port of Lake Charles to lease a rail spur, which currently brings over 5,000 barrels per day of crude oil to local refining markets.