Bakken Shale, Bay Area Refineries, Berkeley, Environmental Impacts, Richmond, Santa Maria Refinery, Tar sands crude

ThinkProgress report: East Bay cities opposing crude by rail

Repost from ThinkProgress
[Editor: Note huge transport related emissions numbers at end of this story.  – RS]

Battle Begins Over Plan To Send Large Crude Oil Trains Through California Cities

By Emily Atkin, March 26, 2014
shutterstock_117462277
CREDIT: Shutterstock

A company’s plan to send massive trains of crude oil through about a dozen heavily populated California communities is starting to hit some roadblocks.

On Tuesday, the City Council of Berkeley, California passed a resolution recommending strong action against Phillips 66, the company that recently filed a project proposal to bring 80-car trains of Canadian or North Dakotan oil to its refinery in Southern California. If approved, that project would have the capacity to transport trains carrying 2 million gallons of crude oil 250 times per year on tracks that are currently used for Amtrak commuter rail, traveling through communities in the Bay Area, Berkeley, and Oakland.

It would be the first time crude oil could travel on trains through the Bay Area, the resolution said.

“A crude train accident could occur anywhere along the transportation corridor,” the resolution states, citing the July derailment of a 72-car freight train carrying Bakken formation crude oil in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec that resulted in a 1.5 million gallon oil spill and the deaths of forty-seven people.

Phillips 66′s proposed project intends to expand its Santa Maria Refinery, which currently processes crude oil that arrives via underground pipe from locations throughout California. But due to the decline in California’s crude oil production, Phillips 66 says it needs to look elsewhere for competitively priced oil. “These could include fields as far away as the Bakken field in North Dakota or Canada,” the company’s project description states.

The company says this would be done by building five sets of parallel tracks to accommodate the 80-car unit trains as often as 250 times per year. It would also build an above-ground pipeline to bring the oil from the trains to the refinery.

The Berkeley City Council’s resolution states that it will file comments in opposition of the project, which is currently before the San Luis Obispo County planning board. The council said it would also work with the city attorney to file “friend of the court” briefs on any lawsuit that challenges the project, and will lobby Congressional representatives at the federal level.

While railroads are generally subject to federal law, the City Council says they can also have an impact by denying land use and other permits if Phillips 66 refuses to mitigate harmful impacts its project might have.

One of those potential harmful impacts is the risk that a train would derail. The National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB] recently made recommendations that crude oil trains stay far away from urban population centers, citing the increasing rate of fiery accidents involving crude oil trains. Many of those accidents involved North Dakota’s Bakken Shale oil — the type Phillips 66 may decide to use — a type of oil which the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has warned could be especially flammable due to either particular properties of the oil or added chemicals from the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract it.

Another potential impact is the amount of greenhouse gases the project would emit, and how it would contribute to climate change. Phillips 66′s environmental impact statement says traveling from the Bakken oil fields to its refinery is a 2,500 mile one-way trip. Phillips 66 estimates that the project would emit 51,728 metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MTCO2e) solely from transporting the crude by rail in states that are not California, and 8,646 MTCO2e solely from transporting the crude within California.

Overall, the whole project would emit 65,908 metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent, the company said.

Insurance Industry, Oil Industry, Rail accidents, Reinsurance, Risk Assessment

Insurance industry figures on 2013 natural and human-caused disasters

Repost from Business Insurance
[Editor’s note: The text here lumps together losses from natural catastrophes and “man-made” disasters.  But the link at the end of this story downloads a PDF that shows detailed information about oil and rail disasters. – RS]

Catastrophes caused global insured losses of $45B in 2013: Swiss Re

Sarah Veysey
March 26, 2014

Global insured losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters totaled about $45 billion in 2013, down from about $81 billion a year earlier, according to a report released Wednesday by Swiss Re Ltd.

Economic losses from natural and man-made disasters were about $140 billion in 2013, down from $196 billion in 2012, according to the Swiss Re sigma report.

The most costly insured event in 2013 was flooding in parts of central and eastern Europe during May that caused insured losses of about $4.1 billion, according to the study.

Hailstorms in France and Germany in July caused insured losses of about $3.8 billion, the report showed, while floods in Canada in June resulted in insured losses of about $1.9 billion.

In the United States, thunderstorms and tornadoes in May caused insured losses of $1.8 billion, while severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and hail later that same month caused insured losses of $1.4 billion. A winter storm bringing ice, tornadoes and heavy rain in April resulted in insured losses of $1.2 billion.

Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in November, left about 7,500 people dead or missing, and caused insured losses of about $1.5 billion, according to the report.

Windstorm Christian, which hit parts of northern and central Europe in October, caused insured losses of about $1.5 billion, according to Swiss Re, while Typhoon Fitow in China and Japan in September caused insured losses of about $1.1 billion.

“Risk prevention and mitigation measures have progressed in recent years,” Swiss Re said in a statement.

“For instance, the losses from the floods in central and eastern Europe last year would have been much worse had the flood protection measures not been strengthened after the same region suffered severe flooding in 2002,” it said.

The study can be found here: Natural catastrophes and man-made disasters in 2013 sigma1_2014_en.PDF.

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?

Crude Oil, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Oil Industry, Public Health, Public Safety, Rail industry, Valero Crude By Rail

Reuters report on West Coast energy projects mentions Valero, Benicia

Repost from Reuters

New U.S. West Coast energy projects face tough opposition

By Edward McAllister

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The West Coast of the United States, long a battle ground for industrial and environmental interests, is set for another round of disputes as the region attracts key energy projects.

Huge new oil and gas fields have changed the way energy is transported across the United States, opening up the prospect of gas exports to Asia and increasing shipments of oil by rail. As this happens, the West Coast, from California to Washington, has become a major focus for energy developers.

Veresen Inc’s Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Coos Bay, Oregon, received approval from the Department of Energy on Monday to export gas to needy importers in Asia. Another project further north, known as Oregon LNG, is expected to receive similar approval within two months.

The two developments, both of which still need construction permits, would be the first of their kind on the West Coast outside of Alaska and represent a potentially new era for the United States, where a drilling boom has pushed output to record highs. The outcome of these projects could also set the standard for other energy developments in the region.

But opposition remains.

“Jordan Cove still needs a slew of federal and state permits to begin construction,” said Zack Malitz of San Francisco-based environmental group Credo, which is opposed to exports because it could lead to more drilling. “We still have time to sound the alarm.”

OIL, COAL

Energy projects have long met opposition in West Coast states where a stronger environmental lobby has made development approvals tougher to obtain than in other more oil industry-friendly states like Texas or Louisiana.

The strength of that opposition is being tested again as coal and oil producers look to the West Coast to broaden their business.

In recent years, mining and shipping industries have tried, and sometimes failed, to gain permission to move coal through ports in the Pacific Northwest to reach Asian markets. The Port of Coos Bay dropped its plans for a coal export terminal last spring after environmental challenges.

Now, three more export terminals remain on the drawing board. Backers of the Morrow Pacific project in Oregon expect to clear regulatory hurdles in the coming months.

Meanwhile, oil producers looking to tap west coast markets have proposed a number of terminals to receive and refine crude oil delivered on trains. Crude by rail has become a major industry in recent years, as new output overwhelms the existing pipeline network. But a number of explosive derailments have given pause to states considering more train traffic, especially loads carrying grades of crude oil from North Dakota considered more volatile than others.

In Washington State, which has the potential to become a major oil port if all pending projects are approved, opposition to moving more crude by rail is growing.

Public meetings held in October regarding a crude by rail terminal in the Port of Vancouver proposed by Tesoro Corp and Savage Services garnered tens of thousands of comments, many of which centered on concerns about crude train crashes and spills.

The project is in the permitting phase, and the final decision lies with Governor Jay Inslee.

Valero Energy Corp’s plan to build an offloading facility at its San Francisco-area refinery was pushed to the first quarter of 2015 from late 2013 to allow time for an environmental review after opponents voiced concerns to local officials.

The surge in the transport of crude oil by rail into California has caught the attention of lawmakers in Sacramento, who last week held a hearing to examine whether more resources should be dedicated to preventing and responding to accidents.

Currently, less than 1 percent of the state’s crude oil is delivered by rail. But with at least six new crude-by-rail facilities planned or under construction in California, that figure is expected to reach 25 percent by 2016.

“Regardless of whether it takes two years or four years, this is a significant change that represents an emerging threat to California’s natural resources,” Tom Cullen, administrator of the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response, said at the hearing last week.

(Reporting By Edward McAllister in New York, Rory Carroll in San Francisco, Patrick Rucker in Washington D.C. and Kristen Hays in Houston; Editing by Joseph Radford)

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