Tag Archives: Butane

Phillips 66 refinery plan threatens Rodeo California residents’ safety

Repost from The San Francisco Chronicle, Open Forum

Refinery plan threatens Rodeo residents’ safety

By Janet Pygeorge and Laurel Impett, April 6, 2015 4:08pm
Contra Costa County officials approved a controver sial expan sion of the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP / FILE
Contra Costa County officials approved a controver sial expan sion of the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP / FILE

The fracking boom in North Dakota and increased recovery of tar sands oil in Canada have prompted dramatic growth in transport of crude oil by rail throughout the United States from regions that pipelines don’t serve. Bay Area refineries and oil and gas companies already are planning for increased rail traffic and expanded operations. These plans are understandably alarming residents because of the potential for oil-train explosions. The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, however, does not share this alarm.

The supervisors made that clear in February when they rubber-stamped a proposed operational expansion of the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo. Analyses done by Communities for a Better Environment, a nonprofit environmental justice organization that has sued to overturn this approval, show that the refinery’s expansion would significantly increase air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and public safety risks.

The board’s position defies both science and common sense. This refinery is located in the middle of an earthquake liquefaction zone. Phillips 66 plans to dramatically increase the number of railcars that are regularly staged at the plant; it also plans to begin processing propane and expand its processing of butane, both highly explosive.

The proposal includes plans to store 630,000 gallons of liquid propane about half a mile from homes, churches, a school and a park. And yet the environmental analysis approved by the board claimed that there would be no significant risks associated with this operational expansion.

In the case of a large earthquake, Phillips 66’s operational expansion would place huge swaths of Rodeo at significant risk of death and destruction, with damage radiating from the refinery up past San Pablo Avenue to as far away as where I-80 runs through Rodeo. It is simply unacceptable for our county officials to allow this expansion without requiring stringent attention to public health and safety by putting aggressive safeguards in place.

In terms of air quality impacts, this refinery has a dismal track record. It received more than 200 notices of violation from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District between 2003 and 2014. According to the California Environmental Protection Agency, it is the seventh-most-toxic polluter of all California facilities with large chemical releases. Phillips 66’s proposed changes would significantly increase the level of air pollution the facility produces, but the company used accounting tricks to hide the ball in its air-quality analysis. County officials did not question the refinery’s flawed analytical approach.

The Board of Supervisors showed its hand when it approved Phillips 66’s operational expansion without requiring investments to protect the health and safety of residents. Three different lawsuits have been filed against the county for lack of appropriate oversight in this matter. Contra Costa residents must demand better from local elected officials.

Join us in demanding that the county put an end to approving dirty industry at the expense of the public’s health and safety. Enough is enough.

Ultimately, if elected officials won’t stand up for health and safety, the court should intervene and protect the best interests of this community.

Janet Pygeorge is president of Rodeo Citizens Association, one of the groups that has filed suit in this matter. Laurel Impett is a planner with Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP, the law firm that represents the association.

MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO: Seven things you need to know about oil-by-rail safety

Repost from Minnesota Public Radio (MPR)

7 things you need to know about oil-by-rail safety

By Emily Kaiser, Feb 26, 2015
Derailment in Mount Carbon, West Virginia
This aerial Feb. 17, 2015 file photo photo made available by the Office of the Governor of West Virginia shows a derailed train in Mount Carbon, West Virginia. Steven Wayne Rotsch | AP file

Last week’s oil train derailment in West Virginia launched a national conversation about the safety of shipping oil by rail. It’s a topic we’ve been hearing about over the past couple years, especially here in Minnesota, where Bakken oil crisscrosses the state’s rail lines in large volume.

It’s a complex topic combining federal policy with scientific questions. The Wall Street Journal’s Russell Gold has been following the issue closely and spoke to MPR News’ Tom Weber to explain what you need to know.

Here are 7 things you should know about oil transport by rail:

1. The most misunderstood part of crude oil transport by train: It’s very explosive.

“The kind of oil that’s being taken out of the ground in North Dakota and put into these tanker cars is a much lighter oil,” Gold said. “It is a very gassy oil; it has a lot of ethanes, and butanes and propanes dissolved in it. It really does explode and that’s really what’s causing the problems.”

When a set of tanker cars goes up in flames, it can cause 20-story-tall fireballs.

Footage from the West Virigina derailment last week:

2. The amount of crude oil carried by train has increased exponentially in less than a decade.

According to the American Association of Railroads, there were 9,500 rail cars carrying crude in 2008. Last year is was 400,000.

We’ve been moving small amounts of crude by rail for years, but it was one or two cars in long train, Gold said. Now we see 100 to 120 tanker cars all filled with crude oil. That’s 70,000 barrels of crude per train, he said.

3. Once the crude oil is extracted in North Dakota, it has to be transported to the country’s major refineries on the coasts.

Refineries are built to utilize the gases removed from the product. If it was stabilized near the extraction site, North Dakota would have to find a way to use or dispose of the ethane and propane gases that make the oil explosive.

4. Railroads have become “virtual pipelines” for oil.

From a Gold WSJ article:

While these virtual pipelines can be created in months, traditional pipelines have become increasingly difficult to install as environmental groups seek to block permits for new energy infrastructure.

“What we are seeing on rail is largely due to opposition to and uncertainty around building pipelines,” said Brigham McCown, who was the chief pipeline regulator under President George W. Bush . Pipelines, he adds, are far safer than trains.

5. Pipeline leaks and spills are environmental problems. Oil train derailments are public safety issues.

When you have a tank car that derails and starts losing it’s very gassy oil, it’s going to burst into fire rather than leak into waterways, Gold said.

6. If you live close to these rail lines, get in touch with local first responders.

Gold recommends checking with emergency responders nearby and ask if they are properly trained to handle a crude oil train derailment. Make sure your fire chief is in contact with the rail companies to know when major shipments come through your area. Push for decreasing train speed limits and increased track inspection.

7. Can we make the tanker cars safer? Gold gave us the latest:

MPR News Producer Brigitta Greene contributed to this report.

Maclean’s: So it turns out Bakken oil is explosive after all

Repost from Maclean’s Magazine

So it turns out Bakken oil is explosive after all

Producers in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields have been told to make crude is safer before being shipped by rail
By Chris Sorensen, December 10, 2014

Oil TrainsAfter years of insisting oil sucked from North Dakota’s Bakken shale wasn’t inherently dangerous, producers have been ordered to purge the light, sweet crude of highly flammable substances before loading it on railcars and shipping it through towns and cities across the continent.

State regulators said this week that the region’s crude will first need to be treated, using heat or pressure, to remove more volatile liquids and gases. The idea, according to North Dakota’s Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms, wasn’t to render the oil incapable of being ignited, but merely more stable in preparation for transport.

It’s the latest regulatory response to a frightening series of fiery train crashes that stretches back to the summer of 2013. That’s when a runaway train laden with Bakken crude jumped the tracks in Lac-Mégantic, Que., and killed 47 people in a giant fireball. In the accident’s immediate aftermath, many experts struggled to understand how a train full of crude oil could ignite so quickly and violently. It had never happened before.

Subsequent studies have shown that Bakken crude, squeezed from shale rock under high pressure through a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” can indeed have a high gas content and vapour pressure, as well as lower flash and boiling points. However, there remains disagreement about whether the levels are unusual for oil extracted from shale, and whether the classifications for shipping it should be changed.

Still, with more than one million barrels of oil being moved by rail from the region each day, regulators have decided to err on the side of caution and implement additional safety measures. For producers, that means buying new equipment that can boil off propane, butane and other volatile natural gases. Under the new rules, the Bakken crude will not be allowed to have a vapour pressure greater than 13.7 lb. per square inch, about the same as for standard automobile gasoline. Regulators estimate that about 80 per cent of Bakken oil already meets these requirements.

The industry isn’t pleased. It continues to argue that Bakken oil is no more dangerous than other forms of light, sweet crude, and is, therefore, being unfairly singled out. It has also warned that removing volatile liquids and gasses from Bakken crude would result in the creation of a highly concentrated, highly volatile product that would still have to be shipped by rail—not to mention additional greenhouse-gas emissions. It goes without saying that meeting the new rules will also cost producers money—at a time when oil prices are falling.

In the meantime, regulators on both sides of the border are taking steps to boost rail safety by focusing on lower speed limits, new brake requirements and plans to phase out older, puncture-prone oil tank cars. Earlier this year, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said Canada would be “leading the continent” on the phase-out of older DOT-111 tank cars, which have been linked to fiery crashes going back 25 years. There are about 65,000 of the cars in service in North America, about a third of which can be found in Canada.

‘Micro refineries’ a solution to oil-train woes, energy firm says

Repost from Reuters in The Jamestown Sun

‘Micro refineries’ a solution to oil-train woes, energy firm says

By Reuters Media Today

WASHINGTON – A handful of small refineries in North Dakota could remove dangerous gas from oil train cargoes and make shipments from the state’s productive Bakken shale area safer on the tracks, according to a company which has pitched the idea to regulators.

The proposal from Quantum Energy Inc would strip propane and other volatile gas from North Dakota crude and send much of the remaining fuel to distant refineries.

Williston, North Dakota-based Quantum hopes to build five “micro refineries” near railheads already handling Bakken crude to strip about 100,000 barrels a day of fuel from that stream.

Some of the resultant gas could add to household fuel supplies in the upper Midwest while making Bakken-origin rail cargoes safer, Quantum’s executive vice president Russell Smith told Reuters.

“Our plan solves a couple of important problems,” said Smith, who earlier this month pitched the idea in meetings with White House officials and Transportation Department regulators mulling oil train safety.

Besides light fuels, Smith said, the Quantum facilities would also pull a stream of diesel gasoline from Bakken sources to help slake demand in the region. Executives hope to have permits and financing to break ground on at least one of the proposed refineries before year-end.

The company expects that each processing center would cost about $500 million.

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation said officials could not comment on their deliberations about oil train safety or meetings with industry.

In the coming weeks, though, officials are expected to outline measures to improve oil train safety such as demanding tougher tank cars, slower speeds and diversions around urban centers.

Several oil cargoes from North Dakota’s Bakken have exploded during rail accidents in the last year. Some officials say toughened tank cars should be used to move such fuel.

Regulators have homed in on the vapor pressure of Bakken fuel, one index of the explosion risk.

Industry-funded tests of Bakken fuel have returned vapor pressure readings of 15 pounds per square inch on the commonly-used Reid scale, while Quantum Energy believes it could bring that reading below 6 psi, similar to fuels like ethanol and heavy crude.

“The crude is much less volatile once you take these light tops off,” said Smith, referring to the gassy share of Bakken fuel.

Some oil industry officials, though, see little need to reduce vapor pressure in oil train cargoes and think Quantum might have misjudged demand for gas.

“There will be a market for propane, potentially in North Dakota, but what about the other components they’ll be removing?” said Kari Cutting, vice president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council.

Pentane, butane and other light gases are not easily marketable in North Dakota currently and may have to be shipped to buyers such as far-off chemical plants in tank cars fit to carry dangerous gas.

Smith said Quantum expects to find buyers that would welcome the portion of Bakken fuel not marketed close to the source. The Bakken field extends into Montana and Canada’s Saskatchewan and Manitoba provinces.