Category Archives: Tar sands crude

Bakken Shale, Environmental Impacts, Public Health, Rail accidents, Tar sands crude, Valero Crude By Rail

NRDC report on Valero meeting – Valero’s Magic Box

Repost from NRDC Switchboard, Diane Bailey’s Blog

Valero’s Magic Box, balancing sludge v. stink of crude oil

Posted March 26, 2014

valero meeting.jpgLast night I learned all about the magic box of Valero’s “operating envelope” at their Benicia (San Francisco Bay Area) refinery during their public meeting for the proposed Crude Oil Rail Terminal.  Valero staff described the proposal to a packed audience, speaking cheerfully about bringing two 50-tanker car trains of crude oil in and out of Benicia each day. The friendly façade crumbled a little during the lengthy explanation to concerned community residents about the type of crude oil that could be coming in those tanker trains, confirming that they may carry dirty tar sands and volatile Bakken crude oil.

Valero - Feedstock Profile (any crude can fit in the blend box) (2).png

This slide from Valero’s presentation shows the magic box that bounds the density of the crude oil – the sludge factor, and the sulfur levels – aka the stink factor – of the crude oil that the Valero Benicia refinery is capable of handling.  It turns out though that the refinery can take a lot of different kinds of crude oil outside the magic yellow box; these are the yellow triangles.  The yellow triangles outside the magic box include both Bakken and tar sands crude oil.  That is to say that they can get the world’s dirtiest and most dangerous crude oils into the magic box of the refinery operating envelope by mixing them.  That’s right, they can brew up an exceptionally hazardous cocktail of tar sands sludge mixed with volatile Bakken crude oil to get inside the magic box.

So, Valero can take the sludgiest, highest stink crude oil and cut it with lighter oil.  Then, voila, they say there are no changes to the balance of sludge and stink in the crude oil refined.  Although this mix may look like the same old conventional crude oil according to Valero’s magic box theory, the reality is that this kind of blend of extreme crude oils creates the greatest public health hazards. Why? It retains the toxic heavy metal contamination from sludgy crudes and that comes out as air pollution; It is much harder to process, which means even more air pollution; it is unstable, prone to volatilizing toxic hydrocarbons like benzene; and it is highly corrosive, putting the refinery and infrastructure at greater risk of accidents.

Will Valero come clean with a real analysis of the public health, safety and environmental risks of the project when the draft Environmental Impact Report comes out next month? Or will they hide these impacts in magic boxes?

Bakken Shale, DOT-111, Tar sands crude, Valero

KPIX reports: Valero admits Tar Sands Crude, Fracked Oil could come through Benicia

Repost from KPIX5 CBS San Francisco

Valero Admits Tar Sands Crude, Fracked Oil Could Come Through Benicia

Representatives from Valero admitted dirty crude oil from the Canadian tar sands or volatile fracked oil could be shipped by rail through Benicia on its way to the oil company’s refinery. Christin Ayers reports

 

Bakken Shale, Oil Industry, Rail industry, Tar sands crude, Valero Crude By Rail

Martinez Environment Group: Report on Valero meeting

Repost from Martinez Environment Group, mrtenvgrp.com

There was a full house at tonight’s Valero-sponsored meeting in Benicia about their crude by rail project. Most alarming: refinery reps confirmed that all North American crude types could come to their facility by rail. However, they could not list what types of crude were in fact being delivered because that is “proprietary” information. Additionally, they could not provide detailed information about all routes the trains would take.

Bakken Shale, Bay Area Refineries, California Regulation, Spill prevention and response, Tar sands crude

Exxon Valdez anniversary: Rail spill response compares unfavorably to water-born spill response

Repost from KPIX5 CBS SF Bay Area

Rail Safety Of Bay Area Oil Shipments Doubted

March 24, 2014 2:20 PM

A KPIX 5 crew captured this video of Bakken crude oil getting unloaded from a train at a rail yard in Richmond. (CBS)

A KPIX 5 crew captured this video of Bakken crude oil getting unloaded from a train at a rail yard in Richmond. (CBS)

SSAN MATEO (KCBS) – Last summer’s oil train accident in Quebec that killed 47 people has lawmakers and others in the Bay Area concerned that it could happen here as the volume of crude oil from fracking and other petroleum products arriving from North Dakota and Canada to local refineries surges.

On Monday’s 25th anniversary of the 1990 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, State Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) said he fears the response to major oil spill will [fall] far short.

“Some of the trains that coming in—the tanker trains that crude oil will have 2.7 million gallons of oil on those trains,” he said.

In 2011, about 9,000 tank cars filled with crude oil were shipped into California by rail. In the next two years, that number is expected to jump to more than 200,000, according to the California Energy Commission.

About 10 percent of the oil will be headed to the five Bay Area refineries.

While most agree the response to water-born spills is good – the Cosco Busan tanker that struck the Bay Bridge in 2007 as an example – inland spills, however, are inherently different.

“When this oil is coming through California at the volume that it’s coming and the magnitude … we want to make sure that our citizens are adequately protected. We really don’t have the resources in place to do it,” Hill said.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget calls for a new 6.5 cents per barrel rapid response fee, but that’s for overland crude oil shipments only.

“Ethanol is just as toxic, hazardous chemical and there’s nothing in place to deal with that type of a spill.”

Curt Clumpner is a member of the Fairfield-based International Bird Rescue and got his experience during the 1990 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. He said the trains that traverse California do so alongside our rivers.

“It obviously increases the risk in terms of the environment and wildlife,” he said.

KCBS KPIX 5 and San Francisco Chronicle Insider Phil Matier said there are environmental activists who are against oil as a rule and will use such a possibility to scare people while the oil industry will likely oversimplify the issue by saying there is no need for concern.

“The truth is somewhere in between. We’ve had ethanol and we’ve had crude oil come around before but not in this volume.”