Tag Archives: Pipeline transport

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Oil spill, Pipeline transport, Tank car design, Tar sands crude, Volatility

The U.S. Has An Oil Train Problem

Repost from ThinkProgress

The U.S. Has An Oil Train Problem

By Samantha Page, Dec 3, 2015 2:43 PM
In this Feb. 16, 2015 photo, provided by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, workers fight a fire after a crude oil train derailment south of south of Timmins, Ontario. CREDIT: AP PHOTO / TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD OF CANADA

Recipe for disaster: Put a flammable substance under pressure into a metal container, then rumble it at 50 miles an hour down a metal rail, across hundreds or even thousands of miles, through towns and cities and over bodies of water. Repeat, as necessary.

The United States is coming to the end of the costliest year on record for oil train explosions, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday, as crude oil travelling by rail has reached its highest levels ever. This past year saw a town in North Dakota evacuated after a May derailment and explosion; another major derailment and explosion in Illinois in March; and a February derailment and explosion in West Virginia, which destroyed a home, forced the evacuation of 1,000 people, and caused the governor to declare a state of emergency.

oil-overtime

CREDIT: EIA DATA

At the beginning of 2010, the United States was shipping about one million barrels of oil by rail every month. By mid-2014, though, that number was around 25 million. Imports from Canada increased 50-fold during that time. The resulting surge in accidents — including a Quebec derailment in 2013 that killed 47 people — prompted the Department of Transportation to enact new safety rules in May 2015.

But those rules didn’t prevent costs from ballooning from $7.5 million in damage in 2014 to $29.7 million in 2015, according to Department of Transportation data.

crude by rail

CREDIT: ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION

Still, carloads of petroleum products have declined significantly since their peak in December 2014, and Bloomberg reporter Mathew Philips suggests that we are unlikely to see this amount of crude by rail in the future.

The reasons for this decline are two-fold. The United States sees crude by rail mainly from two places: Alberta, Canada’s tar sands and the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota, which are affected by two very different scenarios. The Alberta tar sands are expensive to develop and are far from refineries and consumers. That means developers who have already invested will turn to rail as a way to recoup expenses, but it is not their first choice. Without available, low-cost transportation, new development in the tar sands is economically unfeasible, Oil Change International’s Lorne Stockman told ThinkProgress. According to his group’s report “Lockdown: The End of Growth in the Tar Sands,” without more pipelines, tar sands development is going to hit a wall. (In other words, the group agrees with climate activists who say the Keystone decision really will keep more oil in the ground.

But even though stopping pipeline expansion could inhibit oil extraction in Canada, it’s not so simple in the United States. Developing the Bakken fields is significantly less expensive than in Alberta, and producers have — for the past five years — had no problem using rail to bring their cheap crude to the coasts, where it competed with more expensive overseas oil. Now that overseas prices have dropped, producers are building out more pipeline infrastructure, but without it, they could still compete on the open market.)

“It’s hard to say that if you don’t build the pipe, it won’t go by rail,” Stockman said. “We’ve seen in the last five years that it does go by rail.”

He admits this is probably not what anti-pipeline activists want to hear.

“There are local issues around [pipelines], landowner issues, and I totally sympathize with that,” he said. The answer just isn’t going to be found in infrastructure. “If you want to stop production in the Bakken, you should make the producers pay for their pollution.”

The fact is, there is no safe way to transport oil. Studies have shown that while trains spill more often, pipelines spill more oil per incident. When the new regulations came out in 2014, environmentalists — and some legislators — criticized them as not going far enough. Because the realities of transporting an explosive material are pretty scary: while the new regulations lower allowable speeds, tests have shown that the cars can be punctured travelling at less than 20 miles an hour. The new speed limit is 50 miles an hour.

This week, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a petition to reduce the pressure of crude rail cars.

“In New York, trains carrying millions of gallons of crude oil routinely travel through our cities and towns without any limit on its explosiveness or flammability – which makes crude oil more likely to catch fire and explode in train accidents,” Schneiderman said in an emailed statement. “The federal government needs to close this extremely dangerous loophole, and ensure that residents of the communities in harm’s way of oil trains receive the greatest possible protection.”

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Ethanol, Explosion, Fire, Keep it in the ground, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Pipeline transport, Spill, Tar sands crude

Three derailments are three too many

Repost from the Winona Post

Three derailments are three too many

By Kat Eng, Honor the Earth volunteer, 11/23/2015
Train derailment, Alma, Wisconsin << CBS Minnesota

It’s hard to believe Andy Cummings, spokesperson for Canadian Pacific Railway, when he says CP Rail feels it is “absolutely” safe to resume the transportation of oil in the wake of the three derailments last week in Wisconsin.

The first derailed (BNSF) train hurled 32 cars off the tracks outside of Alma, Wis., pouring more than 18,000 gallons of ethanol into the Mississippi River upstream of Winona. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report notes that ethanol (denatured alcohol) is flammable and toxic to aquatic organisms and human life — and it’s water soluble. Though the EPA and Wisconsin DNR admitted they could not remove the toxic product from the water; site coordinator Andy Maguire claims that since they cannot detect concentrated areas of ethanol, it is not negatively impacting the surrounding aquatic life. This was the third derailment on the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife Refuge in the last nine months, according to the community advocacy group Citizens Acting for Rail Safety (CARS).

The next day, 13 DOT-111 tankers with upgraded safety features derailed in Watertown, Wis., spilling crude oil and forcing residents to evacuate from properties along the CP tracks. Four days later, another train derailed a mere 400 feet from that spill site.

Train derailment, Watertown, Wisconsin << fox6now.com

How can we possibly feel safe with ever-greater amounts of toxic products hurtling down inadequately maintained infrastructure every single day? A report released last week by the Waterkeeper Alliance found that “[s]ince 2008, oil train traffic has increased over 5,000 percent along rail routes … There has also been a surge in the number of oil train derailments, spills, fires, and explosions. More oil was spilled from trains in 2013 than in the previous 40 years combined.”

Emergency management has become routine rather than remedial. Teams show up, “contain” the spills, replace some track, and the trains roll on. With forecasts that Canadian oil production will expand by 60,000 barrels per day this year, and an additional 90,000 barrels per day in 2016, toxic rail traffic shows no signs of decreasing.

Energy giant Enbridge has taken this as its cue to size up northern Minnesota and plot pipeline (through Ojibwe tribal lands and the largest wild rice bed in the world) between the North Dakota Bakken oil fields and refineries in Wisconsin and Illinois. Its momentum depends on us puzzling over the false dichotomy of choosing to move oil by pipeline or by rail. At the June 3 Public Utilities Commission hearing, it admitted the proposed Sandpiper/Line 3 pipeline corridor will not alleviate railway congestion but rather potentially reduce “future traffic.” It uses this assumption of unregulated growth to make people today think they have no choice but to sell out the generations of tomorrow.

Proponents of the line want us to choose our poison: will it be more explosive trains or more explosive trains and leaky pipelines? What if an oil tanker derailed on Huff Street in the middle of rush-hour traffic and we became the next Lac-Mégantic (where an oil train exploded downtown killing 47 people)? What if a hard-to-access pipeline spewed fracked crude oil into the headwaters of the Mississippi River?

The real harm is in the delusion that we should accept and live with these risks. It is delusional that despite repeated derailments and toxic spills, business should continue as usual. It is delusional to think the oil and rail industry have our communities’ best interests at heart.

We have the vision, the intelligence, and the technology to choose a way forward that does not compromise our resources for the generations to come. As Winona Laduke says, “I want an elegant transition. I want to walk out of my tepee, an elegant indigenous design, into a Tesla, into an electric car, an elegant western design.” Fossil fuels are history. We need to keep them in the ground and pursue sustainable energy alternatives or risk destroying the water and habitat on which all our lives depend.

 

Bakken Crude, Pipeline transport

12 things to know about proposed Bakken oil pipeline – “Dakota Access”

Repost from the Des Moines Register
[Editor:  See also Act-now-stop-the-dakota-access-pipeline/.  – RS]

12 things to know about proposed Bakken oil pipeline

By William Petroski, November 9, 2015 8:14 p.m. CST

Bakken pipeline Iowa mapMonths of debate over a proposed $3.8 billion crude oil pipeline will come to a head Thursday when the Iowa Utilities Board begins hearings on the controversial project, which has deeply divided Iowans from many walks of life.

Dakota Access LLC., a unit of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, is so confident its pipeline project will be approved that the company has already hired contractors to lay the pipe. In addition, a third-party procurement firm has already delivered huge stacks of metal pipe to Iowa that would be purchased by Dakota Access if state permits are authorized. But foes of the project insist the pipeline approval isn’t a done deal.

The pipeline would run diagonally for 343 miles through 18 Iowa counties while transporting up to 570,000 barrels of light sweet crude oil daily from the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas of North Dakota.

The pipeline would end at a distribution hub at Patoka, Ill., where the oil could be transferred to railroad tank cars or linked to another pipeline for shipment to refineries in the Gulf Coast area.

The utilities board says 280 people have signed up to testify on Thursday, including 134 in favor of the pipeline, 143 opposed, and three who are neutral.

Here are 12 things to know about  the upcoming hearings, which will be held at the Boone County Fairgrounds in Boone:

1. WHO IS PROPOSING THE PIPELINE?

Energy Transfer is considered a leader in the domestic energy sector, and it already owns and operates about 71,000 miles of pipelines throughout the United States.

The company announced plans for the project in June 2014, and it says it has secured long-term binding  contracts for oil shipments to support construction of the pipeline. Much of the oil produced since a boom began in North Dakota’s oil region has been hauled to major refining markets by railroad tank cars and trucks, a method that is more costly and hazardous than transportation via pipeline, experts say.

Although slumping prices for crude on the global market has slowed production from North Dakota’s oil fields, Energy Transfer has not retreated on plans for the Bakken pipeline. The company says it hopes to have the pipeline operational by late 2016.

2. .WHERE IS THE PIPELINE ROUTE?

The pipeline would pass from the northwest to the southeast, through 18 Iowa counties: Lyon, Sioux, O’Brien, Cherokee, Buena Vista, Sac, Calhoun, Webster, Boone, Story, Polk, Jasper, Mahaska, Keokuk, Wapello, Jefferson, Van Buren, and Lee.

Dakota Access says that when construction is underway, a 150-foot-wide right of way will be requested, most of which will be used temporarily. When the pipeline is finished, a permanent 50-foot easement will be required. The  pipe would be buried in farm fields so that the top of the pipe is at least 48 inches deep, or 2 feet below any drain tiles, whichever is lower, according to state officials.

3. WHO SUPPORTS THE PIPELINE?

Strong support has been voiced by union construction workers who would help build the pipeline, and by Iowa business interests who see the project as contributing to the nation’s energy independence and a robust state economy.

Some farmers say transporting oil by pipeline will help ease congestion on railroads, expediting shipments of Midwest grain at harvest.

James Nelson of Sioux City, who lives about a block from a major BNSF Railway line in northwest Iowa, regularly watches railroad tanker cars carrying North Dakota crude oil pass through his neighborhood. He supports the pipeline project as a safer alternative for transporting oil, pointing to catastrophic accidents that have occurred when Bakken oil trains have derailed elsewhere. He also endorses the use of eminent domain to acquire easements for the pipeline.

“The laws for eminent domain were established for the purpose of preventing a small minority from stopping a project that so clearly minimizes the danger to so many people,” Nelson said in a letter to the Iowa Utilities Board. “That appears to be the case with the Dakota Access Pipeline.”

4. WHO IS AGAINST THE PIPELINE?

Many farmers along the route say they don’t want the pipeline to pass through their land, fearing damage to agricultural drainage lines and reduced crop yields, and they strongly object to eminent domain being authorized to gain easements for the pipeline route.

Environmentalists have joined the fight, expressing worries about pipeline spills and objecting to developing infrastructure to transport fossil fuels, which they believe contribute to climate change. In addition, the Meskwaki Indian tribe opposes the project, expressing concerns the pipeline would harm Native American graves while crossing through ancestral and ceded treaty lands.

Arthur Moeller of Fort Dodge, heir to a Calhoun County farm that has been in his family for 130 years, filed an objection to the pipeline project with the Iowa Utilities Board in in late October.

“Nowhere can we find that they have the assets and/or insurance coverage to adequately protect us now or in the future,” Moeller said. “The spills across the nation that are listed on the Internet show that it can take millions of dollars to clean them up, and in some cases it isn’t even possible… Eminent domain should not be granted to a private company for the benefit of a few at the expense of many.”

5.WHO WILL MAKE THE DECISION?

The Iowa Utilities Board comprises three persons appointed by Republican Gov. Terry Branstad.

They’re all former members of the Iowa House of Representatives and are considered friendly to business: Chairwoman Geri Huser is a Democrat, and board members Libby Jacobs and Nick Wagner are both Republicans.

Branstad has championed construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which was rejected by President Barack Obama’s administration last week. But Branstad has declined to take a stand on the Bakken pipeline, although he endorses eminent domain for pipelines in certain circumstances.

6. WHERE ARE THE HEARINGS AND WHAT’S THE SCHEDULE?

The hearings will be at the Boone County Fairgrounds Community Building in Boone, which board spokesman Don Tormey called the middle point for the project in Iowa.

The Iowa Utilities Board has issued an order for up to 11 days of hearings to begin Thursday, Nov. 12, and to continue through Dec. 2 if necessary. The first day of hearings will be set aside for public comment, while the following days will be used for a trial-like evidentiary proceeding.

7. WHEN WILL A DECISION BE MADE?

The Utilities Board is expected to vote on the pipeline application by year’s end or early January.

State approvals are also pending in North Dakota, South Dakota and Illinois. Unlike the Keystone XL pipeline, approval is not required from Obama or the U.S. State Department. Federal approval was required for Keystone because it would have crossed an international border.

8..HOW CAN I FOLLOW THE HEARINGS IF I CAN’T ATTEND?

They will be carried via video livestream on the Utilities Board’s website: https://iub.iowa.gov/

9. WHAT IS THE ECONOMIC IMPACT?

Energy Transfer says the entire four-state project will cost $3.78 billion, including the Iowa segment’s cost of $1.04 billion.

The company says 2,000 to 4,000 jobs would be provided in Iowa during construction, and Iowa would receive about $50 million in sales and income taxes during construction.

Energy Transfer has promised to hire at least half of the workers on Iowa’s portion from within the state, and it has reached an agreement to hire Iowa union workers. The company says most pipeline jobs would be skilled — welders, mechanics, electricians, pipe fitters and heavy equipment operators. Average annual income for workers would be $57,000. In 2017, the company says the pipeline would generate an estimated $24.7 million in local property taxes in Iowa.

However, Iowa State University economist David Swenson, as well as critics of the pipeline project, contend that projected benefits of the pipeline in Iowa exaggerate its positive impacts on the state’s economy. Swenson testified as a neutral witness last month in a deposition submitted by the Sierra Club, and he noted that the two major contractors recently hired for the Iowa segment are both from out of state.

Once completed, the pipeline would not have any distribution centers in Iowa, and it would employ only 12 to 15 permanent employees in the state, according to the company. That’s prompted pipeline critics to contend the primary beneficiaries of the project would be out-of-state business interests.

10.  WHAT ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS ARE PLANNED?

Energy Transfer says that as the pipeline is constructed, every weld that joins each section of pipe would be inspected both visually and with  X-rays to prevent leaks.

Valves would be installed along the pipeline to shut off the flow of oil through pipe sections in an emergency. The pipeline would be inspected and pressure-tested with water at higher than normal operating pressure before it would be placed in service. Special regulation devices would be installed to prevent oil pressure from exceeding safe limits, and an emergency shutdown system would be used to immediately and safety shut down pump stations and isolate pipe sections in an emergency.

The company also promises around-the-clock monitoring and regular inspections and testing, as well as efforts to educate the public about preventing damage. In addition, the company would coordinate with local emergency responders. It would post signs that mark the location of the pipeline and give a phone number to call before digging.

Energy Transfer also pledges to clean up the construction area after the pipeline is installed and to restore the land in compliance with state law.

11 . HOW MUCH LAND HAS BEEN ACQUIRED?

Vicki Granado, a spokeswoman for Dakota Access, says voluntary easement agreements have been signed for 72 percent of the properties along the Iowa section of the route and for 78 percent of the properties along the entire four-state route.

Company officials have estimated they would make $60 million in easement payments to Iowa property owners whose land the pipeline would cross.

If farmers don’t agree to voluntary easements, the Iowa Utilities Board could be asked to authorize the use of eminent domain, which would allow the company to take private land for right of way over a property owner’s objections after paying fair market compensation.

A Cherokee County District Court judge last month used a technicality to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Iowa Utilities Board’s authority to grant eminent domain for the project. District Judge Carl Petersen said the three landowners who sued needed to first exhaust administrative remedies before they could sue the state agency. The judge did not rule whether Dakota Access is eligible for eminent domain.

12. ARE THERE OTHER REGULATORY HURDLES?

The pipeline project must win approval from regulators in three other states in addition to Iowa.

It also is subject to regulations of the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, and to federal environmental laws that include the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Rivers and Harbor Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Historical Preservation Act.

In addition, Dakota Access has promised to comply with the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Pipeline opponents say that if the Iowa Utilities Board approves the project, they still intend to oppose environmental approvals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Federal Regulation (U.S.), Keystone XL, Pipeline transport

Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline in Key Win for Climate, Wildlife

Repost from the New York Times

Obama Rejects Construction of Keystone XL Oil Pipeline

By Coral Davenport, Nov. 6, 2015


WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday announced that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a flash point in the debate over his climate policies.

Mr. Obama’s denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he is seeking to build an ambitious legacy onclimate change.

“The pipeline would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy,’’ the president said in remarks from the White House.

The move was made ahead of a major United Nations summit meeting on climate change in Paris in December, when Mr. Obama hopes to help broker a historic agreement committing the world’s nations to enacting new policies to counter global warming. While the rejection of the pipeline is largely symbolic, Mr. Obama has sought to telegraph to other world leaders that the United States is serious about acting on climate change.

The once-obscure Keystone project became a political symbol amid broader clashes over energy, climate change and the economy. The rejection of a single oil infrastructure project will have little impact on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, but the pipeline plan gained an outsize profile after environmental activists spent four years marching and rallying against it in front of the White House and across the country.

The rejection of the pipeline is one of several actions Mr. Obama has taken as he intensifies his push on climate change in his last year in office. In August, he announced his most significant climate policy, a set of aggressive new regulations to cut emissions of planet-warming carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants.

Republicans and the oil industry had demanded that the president approve the pipeline, which they said would create jobs and stimulate economic growth. Many Democrats, particularly those in oil-producing states like North Dakota, also supported the project. In February, congressional Democrats joined with Republicans in sending Mr. Obama a bill to speed approval of the project, but the president vetoed the measure.

Both sides saw the Keystone rejection as a major symbolic step, a sign that the president was willing to risk angering a bipartisan majority of lawmakers in the pursuit of his environmental agenda. And both supporters and critics of Mr. Obama saw the surprisingly powerful influence of environmental activists in the decision.

“Once the grass-roots movement on the Keystone pipeline mobilized, it changed what it meant to the president,” said Douglas G. Brinkley, a historian at Rice University who writes about presidential environmental legacies. “It went from a routine infrastructure project to the symbol of an era.”

Activists protested against the proposed Keystone pipeline outside the White House in January. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

Environmental activists cheered the decision as a vindication of their influence. They had sought to block construction of the pipeline because it would have provided a conduit for petroleum extracted from the Canadian oil sands. The process of extracting that oil produces about 17 percent more planet-warming greenhouse gases than the process of extracting conventional oil.

But numerous State Department reviews concluded that construction of the pipeline would have little impact on whether that type of oil was burned, because it was already being extracted and moving to market via rail and existing pipelines.

“From a market perspective, the industry can find a different way to move that oil,” said Christine Tezak, an energy market analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington firm. “How long it takes is just a result of oil prices. If prices go up, companies will get the oil out.”

However, a State Department review also found that demand for the oil sands fuel would drop if oil prices fell below $65 a barrel, since moving oil by rail is more expensive than using a pipeline. An Environmental Protection Agency review of the project this year noted that under such circumstances, construction of the pipeline could be seen as contributing to emissions, since companies might be less likely to move the oil via expensive rail when oil prices are low — but would be more likely to move it cheaply via the pipeline. The price of oil has plummeted this year, hovering at less than $50 a barrel.

The recent election of a new Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, may also have influenced Mr. Obama’s decision. Mr. Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper, had pushed the issue as a top priority in the relationship between the United States and Canada, personally urging Mr. Obama to approve the project. Blocking the project during the Harper administration would have bruised ties with a crucial ally. While Mr. Trudeau also supports construction of the Keystone pipeline, he has not made the issue central to Canada’s relationship with the United States, and has criticized Mr. Harper for presenting Canada’s position as an ultimatum, while not taking substantial action on climate change related to the oil sands.

Mr. Trudeau did not raise the issue during his first post-election conversation with Mr. Obama..

The construction would have had little impact on the nation’s economy. A State Department analysis concluded that building the pipeline would have created jobs, but the total number represented less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the nation’s total employment. The analysis estimated that Keystone would support 42,000 temporary jobs over its two-year construction period — about 3,900 of them in construction and the rest in indirect support jobs, like food service. The department estimated that the project would create about 35 permanent jobs.

Republicans and the oil industry criticized Mr. Obama for what they have long said was his acquiescence to the pressure of activists and environmentally minded political donors.

Michael Whatley, the vice president of Consumer Energy Alliance, a group that lobbies for the fossil fuel industry, released a statement Friday expressing disappointment in Mr. Obama’s decision.

He has thumbed his nose at more than two thirds of Americans who support reducing energy imports from unfriendly nations; who support job creation; who support friendly relations with our Canadian neighbors; who support regulatory decisions based on science, not politics; and who support big ideas and big achievements.

“This decision clearly flies in the face of volumes of scientific evidence that shows the Keystone XL pipeline would be safe, enhance environmental standards, and be a more cost-effective alternative to importing oil from overseas.”

Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, said: “It’s a bellwether decision by the president. I think the president made his decision to side with special interests, and that’s the way I see him going for the final two years.”