All posts by Roger Straw

Editor, owner, publisher of The Benicia Independent
Bakken Crude, Canadian regulation, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Tank car design, Tank car retirement, Tar sands crude, Track maintenance

Canada Transport Watchdog to Introduce New Tank Cars Ahead of Schedule

Repost from Insurance Journal (Reuters)

Canada Transport Watchdog to Introduce New Tank Cars Ahead of Schedule

By David Ljunggren | March 18, 2015
RTR4PZHU
IN PHOTO: Tanker rail cars burn after a crude oil train derailment 50 miles (80 km) south of Timmins, Ontario, in this picture from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada taken in Gogama, Ontario, February 16, 2015. Canadian National Railway Co is still cleaning up spilled oil and removing damaged rail cars after a weekend derailment on its line at a remote site. The company said 29 of 100 cars on the train heading from Alberta’s tar sands to eastern Ontario derailed late on Saturday and seven caught fire. There were no injuries. Picture taken February 16, 2015. REUTERS/Transportation Safety Board of Canada/Handout via Reuters

Canada’s transportation watchdog said that recent fiery derailments of trains hauling crude oil mean a new generation of stronger tanker wagons should be introduced ahead of schedule.

The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) is probing two accidents within the last month involving Canadian National Railway Co. oil trains which came off the tracks and caught fire near the small northern Ontario town of Gogama.

Both trains were hauling CPC-1232 crude tankers, meant to be safer than the older DOT-111 models that blew up in downtown Lac-Megantic, Quebec in 2013, killing 47 people. Canada last week unveiled tough standards for a new generation of tanker cars that would replace the CPC-1232s by 2025 at the latest.

“While the proposed standards look promising, the TSB has concerns about the implementation timeline, given initial observations of the performance of CPC-1232 cars in recent derailments,” the agency said in a release.

“If older tank cars, including the CPC-1232 cars, are not phased out sooner, then the regulator and industry need to take more steps to reduce the risk of derailments or consequences following a derailment carrying flammable liquids,” it said, but gave no details.

The agency said track failures may have played a role in each of the Gogama derailments as well as in the case of an oil train that left the tracks near Minnipuka, also in northern Ontario. No crude caught fire in that accident.

The TSB has issued a safety advisory letter asking the federal transport ministry to review the risk assessments conducted for the area.

“Petroleum crude oil unit trains transporting heavily-loaded tank cars will tend to impart higher than usual forces to the track infrastructure during their operation,” said the agency.

“These higher forces expose any weaknesses that may be present in the track structure, making the track more susceptible to failure.”

It noted trains traveling in the area were under orders to travel slowly to protect against various infrastructure and track maintenance issues.

CN spokesman Jim Feeny said the company “has enhanced its already rigorous infrastructure and mechanical inspection procedures on this northern Ontario rail corridor.”

The office of Transport Minister Lisa Raitt – which has overall responsibility for regulating the rail industry – was not immediately available for comment.

(Additional reporting by Allison Martell in Toronto; editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Marguerita Choy)

Related article:
Canada Proposes Tough New Oil Tank Car Standards

Bakken Crude, Canadian refineries, Export of North American crude, North American light crude oils, Oil prices

U.S. exporting more crude oil to Canada

Repost from Bloomberg Business News

Canadian Refiners Set to Buy More U.S. Oil With Wider Discount

By Robert Tuttle, March 18, 2015 4:14 PM PDT 

(Bloomberg) — Cheaper North American oil is poised to replace West African and Middle East cargoes at eastern Canadian refineries with U.S. crude prices at the lowest level compared with the international benchmark in 14 months.

Imports to Canada from outside North America averaged 244,089 barrels a day this month through March 15, down 27 percent from a year earlier, according to New York-based ClipperData, which tracks tanker shipments.

Canada, the world’s fifth-largest oil supplier, produces most of its oil in the western province of Alberta and exports it south to the U.S. A lack of pipelines means Canada’s eastern refineries depend on imports by tanker and train.

U.S. export “volumes have been growing pretty exponentially,” Katherine Spector, a commodities strategist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in New York, said by phone Wednesday. U.S. oil is “going to Eastern Canadian refineries and displacing waterborne light crude.”

U.S. crude oil exports averaged 478,000 barrels a day the week ended March 13, up almost eightfold from a year earlier, preliminary data from the Energy Information Administration show. Canada, the only country that U.S. producers can export to without restrictions, receives the bulk of the shipments.

Oil has flowed north as West Texas Intermediate crude’s discount to Brent averaged $9.43 a barrel this month from $2.41 in January as U.S. stockpiles rose to a 458.5 million barrels, the most in decades.

The U.S. displaced Algeria in 2013 as Canada’s biggest source of imported oil and accounted for about half of imports in the first eight months of last year, the country’s National Energy Board said in a November report. The trend was driven by availability of tight oil from North Dakota as well as Texas, New Mexico and Colorado.

Bakken crude from North Dakota traded at about $40 a barrel today versus $55 for oil from West Africa, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Especially with lower prices, a difference of a dollar or so in transport costs is significant,” Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts, said by phone Wednesday. “If you can bring it in from the U.S. rather than West Africa, it’s a little closer and cheaper.”

Expanded rail capacity has linked U.S. oil producers with Canada, Spector said. The movement parallels the movement of Bakken crude to U.S. East Coast by rail, which cut the region’s imports of crude from Nigeria by half in two years and from Algeria by 81 percent, EIA data show.

“The maritime provinces of eastern Canada do resemble the U.S. East Coast in many ways,” Antoine Halff, head of the International Energy Agency’s oil industry and markets division, said in a March 18 phone interview. “When Bakken crude started being railed to the U.S. East Coast in significant quantities, it displaced imports from West Africa.”

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, State regulation

Legislation proposed in state of Washington to regulate oil trains

Repost from The Pacific Northwest Inlander

Big Boom

What officials want to do with exploding oil train traffic

By Jake Thomas, March 18, 2015
A train shipping oil through Montana.
A train shipping oil through Montana.

Every day a potential bomb, sometimes a mile long, quietly passes through Spokane as it makes its journey across the state.

Beginning four years ago, Washington began seeing a big change in how crude oil was transported across the state. Historically, Washington received 90 percent of its crude oil from tanker ships from Alaska or an international source. Now it comes by trains from North Dakota loaded with crude oil from the Bakken shale. Every week 16 Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains carrying Bakken oil pass through Spokane County, according to a recent report from the state Department of Ecology. The study found that the number of oil trains traveling through the state could rise to 137 a week by 2020.

Bakken oil is particularly volatile, and sometimes these trains derail and explode. In the last month alone, four oil trains have derailed in Illinois, West Virginia and twice in Quebec, causing explosions and environmental contamination. In 2013, a train derailed in a small town in Quebec, killing 47 people.

In Washington, a rail line runs through Spokane Valley, downtown Spokane and Cheney and intersects with I-90. An oil train explosion along this stretch could be catastrophic.

“All of Cheney could be wiped out,” says Laura Ackerman, oil and coal campaign director at the environmental advocacy group the Lands Council. “All of these places could be wiped out.”

Last year, Washington lawmakers were unable to pass any legislation regarding oil trains. They’re trying again this session, and legislators are split on two competing proposals. In Spokane, the only urban center the trains pass through on their way to western Washington, the city’s officials have taken different approaches to potential legislation.

Earlier this month, two bills passed out of the House and Senate, respectively. They both seek to provide local communities with more information and resources for responding to an oil train derailment, but differ on how to do that.

The Senate version would require railroad companies to submit notices to be shared with local authorities on the route, time, volume and type of crude oil that was sent through their jurisdiction for the previous week. An amendment to the bill also requires a minimum of three crew members on trains carrying hazardous materials, four if the train is longer than 51 cars. It also creates grants for local first responders.

A competing bill in the House, backed by Gov. Jay Inslee, would go further by requiring rail companies to provide daily notices to local governments. Under the bill, rail companies would have to demonstrate the ability to pay for worst-case spills. It would also increase a per-barrel tax, that currently only applies to marine transport, from 4 cents to 8 cents. The tax, which is directed toward oil spill prevention, would also be applied to oil transported by rail and pipeline in Washington state.

“[The Senate bill] is too weak to declare victory, if that’s the one that passes,” says Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart, who has traveled to Olympia to support the governor’s bill.

Proponents of the governor’s bill, which includes Spokane Democratic state Reps. Timm Ormsby and Marcus Riccelli, say that local governments should have daily notification of oil trains because different types of oil, such as Bakken crude, are more volatile and fires resulting from them are more difficult to put out, and first responders could be better prepared if they know what’s coming.

Opponents of requiring more frequent disclosure from rail companies say that the information could be hacked and land in the hands of terrorists, to which Stuckart responds, “I think we’ve got a lot bigger threat with oil trains than terrorists.”

Mayor David Condon has not been to Olympia to lobby on the bills, and he says he doesn’t have a firm position on either. But he might develop a firmer position as the session progresses.

“You know, I just got a side-by-side comparison [of the bills],” Condon tells the Inlander. “I haven’t had a chance to review them.”

Condon says he has been engaged on oil train safety, serving as co-chair on a committee with the Association of Washington Cities dedicated to freight rail. Local first responders have undergone training exercises to prepare for an oil train derailment, says Condon, and his administration has concentrated on making sure that planning and communication are in place for such an event.

Stuckart and Councilman Jon Snyder, however, would like to see the mayor push harder for better protections.

“I’d like to see him be more [engaged on the legislation],” says Snyder.

Bakken Crude, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail infrastructure, Rail inspection, Rail Safety, Tank car design, Train braking systems

Inspectors find rotting ties, loose bolts, bad brakes in Rockland NY

Repost from The White Plains NY Journal News on LoHud.com

Rotting ties, loose bolts found on CSX track near Rockland

Khurram Saeed, March 17, 2015 4:50 p.m. EDT

Inspectors found five problem spots, including a number of deteriorated cross ties, between Newburgh and Haverstraw on CSX’s River Line, which carries oil trains through Rockland County.

TJN 0317 LoweyOilTrains
(Photo: Ricky Flores/The Journal News)

Crumbling railroad ties and loose bolts were some of the defects recently discovered on the freight line used by oil trains to travel through Rockland.

State and federal inspectors found five problem spots along 22 miles of track, including two switches, on CSX’s River Line from Newburgh to Haverstraw. The most serious defect was a number of deteriorated cross ties along a short section of track near the Rockland border in Fort Montgomery, Orange County.

The flaw, deemed a “critical defect,” doesn’t necessarily indicate a safety lapse but an important maintenance issue that “must be addressed,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office said in a news release Tuesday. The cross ties have since been repaired.

Inspectors from the state Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration last week also identified four non-critical defects in Haverstraw and Fort Montgomery, including loose switch bolts and insufficient ballast.

Rockland County Executive Ed Day said CSX should be making these fixes “without being prompted” by the state.

“They’re breaking a trust with the public at this point and they really need to step up their game,” Day told The Journal News.

CSX spokesman Rob Doolittle said the railroad’s inspections on all crude oil routes exceed federal standards. He said those routes undergo visual inspections at least three times a week; track-geometry inspections two or three times a year; and ultrasound inspections three to 12 times a year.

“As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we look for lessons that can be applied to our programs going forward whenever an external authority identifies a defect in our infrastructure,” Doolittle said in an email.

The state review was the latest in a series of inspections of nearly 1,000 miles of tracks and the tank cars that carry Bakken crude oil across New York. Up to 30 trains, typically made up of 100 tank cars, each week make their way south through four of Rockland’s five towns on their way to refineries.

Officials said statewide they uncovered 93 defects, seven of which were critical. They included thin brake shoes o NYn the tank cars and missing bolts on the rails. In all, state and federal inspectors examined 453 crude oil tank cars and approximately 148 miles of track.

DOT Commissioner Joan McDonald praised inspectors for finding “numerous track and rail car maintenance issues that were quickly addressed.” Non-critical defects have to be fixed with 30 days, while a tank car can’t leave the rail yard until its problem has been repaired.

Derailments this year involving mile-long trains hauling Bakken crude in the U.S. and Canada have further heightened concerns about their safety. That’s because some of the tank cars were newer models equipped with greater protections designed to reduce the risk of explosions and fires.

Last month, a Maine fire chief spoke in Rockland to warn firefighters and officials about the dangers and difficulty of battling Bakken crude fires.

Here are the major accidents involving oil trains so far this year:

  • Feb. 14: A 100-car Canadian National Railway train hauling crude oil and petroleum distillates derailed in a remote part of Ontario, Canada.
  • Feb. 16: A 109-car CSX oil train derailed and caught fire near Mount Carbon, West Virginia, leaking oil into a Kanawha River tributary and burning a house to its foundation.
  • March 5: Twenty-one cars of a 105-car Burlington Northern-Santa Fe train hauling oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota derailed about 3 miles outside Galena, Illinois, a town of about 3,000 in the state’s northwest corner.
  • March 7: A 94-car Canadian National Railway crude oil train derailed about 3 miles outside the Northern Ontario town of Gogama and destroyed a bridge. The accident was only 23 miles from the Feb. 14th derailment.

Last year, railroads moved nearly 500,000 tank cars of crude oil compared to just 9,500 in 2008, according to the Association of American Railroads. Amid this domestic oil boom, new federal safety regulations for the tank cars are being finalized and expected to be made public in May.

The Associated Press contributed information to this article.