Bakken Crude, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire

LATEST DERAILMENT: Fiery train derailment prompts evacuation of Heimdal, N.D.

May 6, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from the Grand Forks Herald
[Editor: More photos at the Bismarck Tribune. – RS]

Fiery train derailment prompts evacuation of Heimdal, N.D.

By Herald Staff Report, May 6, 2015 8:52 a.m.

Train derailment and tanker fire by Heimdal. Pic courtesy of Jennifer Willis.

HEIMDAL, N.D. — The small North Dakota community of Heimdal and surrounding farmsteads were evacuated after an oil tanker train derailed Wednesday morning.

The BNSF Railway oil tanker train derailed about 7:30 a.m. about a mile and half east of Heimdal. Heimdal is about 80 miles southeast of Minot, said Wells County Emergency Manager Tammy Roehrich.

Cecily Fong, public information officer for the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services, reported there were 10 tanker cars on fire, though Roehrich reported six cars on fire.

BNSF spokesman Michael Trevino could not confirm the number of cars burning.

Fong and Trevino said the engine and cars not on fire have been decoupled and moved to safety.

No injuries or fatalities were reported, Fong said.

Roehrich said she couldn’t get close enough to the train to see whether it was exploding or just burning. “It looks a lot like Casselton,” she said, referring to the fiery train wreck of oil tankers near Casselton in December 2013.

Trevino said 107 tank cars were carrying crude, with two buffer cars loaded with sand between the crude cars and locomotives.

Trevino said he did not know the origin or destination of the train, which was using a two-person crew.

Wells County 911 Director and Deputy Sheriff Janelle Pepple said the the sky was black with smoke near the derailment site.

Everett Johnson, whose farm is 1.5 miles east of Heimdal, said he drove to within half a mile of the site earlier Wednesday and saw heavy black smoke pouring from the wreck. Although his home is close to the derailment, a hill blocks his view of the site.

“The wind’s blowing from the southwest to the northeast, so it’s not affecting the town of Heimdal,” he said. “It’s drizzling and raining, so that’s a good thing.”

The cars that derailed were toward the rear end of the train, he said. The decoupled section was pulled to the east.

“It’s kind of a slough area,” Johnson said.

Fong said about 40 people were evacuated from Heimdal.

The North Dakota Department of Health is monitoring air quality near the town of Heimdal.

A statement from the Health Department said the primary concern at this time is particulate matter contained in the smoke generated from the fire. The smoke plume is not dispersing well because of current weather conditions. Much of the smoke is remaining close to the ground, where it has greater potential to exacerbate breathing problems.

The 2010 Census reported 27 people living in Heimdal and 21 residents in Hamburg, about 19 miles to the east. Both are in northeastern Wells County.

A statement from BNSF Railway said the tank cars involved in the incident are the unjacketed CPC-1232 models, which are targeted for phase-out by 2020 under new federal safety rules announced last Friday.

Trevino said “unjacketed” means the cars can be retrofitted with ceramic thermal wrapping to conform with the new regulations.

A statement from Sarah Feinberg, acting Federal Railroad Administrator, said the agency has deployed a 10-person investigation team to the site.

“Today’s incident is yet another reminder of why we issued a significant, comprehensive rule aimed at improving the safe transport of high hazard flammable liquids. The FRA will continue to look at all options available to us to improve safety and mitigate risks,” Feinberg said in the statement.

Trevino could not say definitively that the new rules would have prevented a fire.

“The new rules would have a safer tank than the ones involved in this incident. So the new rules are moving toward a safer set of circumstances,” he said in an interview.

Ron Reimche, a school bus driver for the Harvey School District, said he crossed the same train tracks a few miles away from the scene shortly before the crash was reported. He was on his way to Esmond to pick up his first student of the day.

“I meet the trains every so often at that crossing,” said Reimche, adding that he makes sure to stop well back from the train tracks on his route. “In my opinion, they ought to hurry and get that pipeline in.”

Trevino said a cause for the derailment has not been determined. Responders are still attempting to contain oil at scene.

BNSF has dispatched its environmental response team and local operations team to the site.

Emergency crews from several fire departments in the region and hazardous materials teams from Devils Lake and Grand Forks responded to the derailment.

In addition to HAZMAT teams from Devils Lake and Grand Forks, the state Highway Patrol and firefighters from Harvey, Fessenden, Hamburg and Devils Lake were dispatched.

Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said the FRA has deployed 10 people to the scene to investigate what caused the accident.

This is a developing story. Please check back for details. Reuters contributed information to this story.

Big Oil, California oil industry, California Regulation, Gasoline prices

NextGen Climate’s Tom Steyer: If Oil Company Executives Won’t Answer Questions They Should Face Subpoena

May 5, 2015 Roger Straw

Press Release by NextGen Climate

NEXTGEN CLIMATE FOUNDER & PRESIDENT TOM STEYER CALLS FOR ANSWERS FROM BIG OIL ON GAS PRICE SPIKE IN CALIFORNIA

Steyer Says If Oil Company Executives Won’t Answer Questions They Should Face Subpoena

May 5, 2015 3:53 PM

SAN FRANCISCO—NextGen Climate Founder and President Tom Steyer today spoke at a Chevron gas station about the recent gas price spike in California and called on the State Senate to subpoena oil company executives if they refuse to provide answers to basic questions about their pricing and oil refining practices.

“As everyone knows, the oil companies have been charging Californians up to $1 billion per month more for gasoline than if we paid the national average,” Steyer said. “It’s time to put an end to the Big Oil giveaway, and start giving Californians a fair shake.”

Steyer also highlighted recent comments made by Chevron during its first quarter earnings call with investors last week. Chevron’s general manager of investor relations, Jeff Gustavson, noted that refining margins “increased earnings by $435 million driven by unplanned industry downtime and tight product supply on the U.S. West Coast.”

As Steyer noted, Chevron is saying for the oil industry, “their problems were good for their profits.” Steyer also highlighted the problem with the lack of transparency into the oil industry’s business practices, saying “we don’t have the facts we need in order to know if we’re paying fair prices based on the market, or if oil companies are deliberately taking actions which lower supplies and drive profits higher.”

Oil company executives had the opportunity to show up for a Senate hearing in March, to answer questions and allow Californians to judge whether they are being unfairly gouged at the pump. But industry executives refused to show up, instead sending a paid economist who then claimed he didn’t speak for the oil companies. If these executives continue refusing to answer for their business practices, the State Senate should subpoena these executives to force them to answer to Californians. Once Big Oil answers this call, we can begin to fix California’s rigged gasoline market and give Californians the fair shake they deserve.

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NextGen Climate is focused on bringing climate change to the forefront of American politics. Founded by Tom Steyer in 2013, NextGen Climate acts politically to prevent climate disaster and promote prosperity for all Americans.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, Hazmat notification, Public Safety, Rail industry lobby

Crude Oil Rail Shipments Sabotage Freedom of Information Act

May 5, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from Forbes

Crude Oil Rail Shipments Sabotage Freedom of Information Act

By James Conca, May 5, 2015 @ 4:40 AM

New regulations from the U.S. Department of Transportation declare that details about crude oil rail shipments are exempt from public disclosure (Tri-City Herald).

This ends DOT’s existing regulations that required railroads to share with state officials, and the public, information about shipping large volumes of dangerous crude oil by rail. These disclosure requirements were put in place last year after a Bakken crude oil train-wreck in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Now, railroads will only have to share this information with emergency responders who will be mum. And the information will be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act as well as public records and state disclosure laws (SSI).

Better response, slower speeds and safer rail cars are needed to stem the rise of crude oil rail car accidents. Transparency would be nice, too, although that took a real hit last week with the new regulations from the Department of Transportation. Source: National Transportation Safety Board

True, the new regulations do cover critical oil train operations in terms of “speed restrictions, braking systems, and routing, and adopts safety improvements in tank car design standards and a sampling and classification program for unrefined petroleum-based products.” All good things long needed to address the growing dangers in rail transport of crude.

But after the Lynchburg derailment and inferno, the feds required railroads to notify emergency response agencies if shipments over a million gallons crude oil were going through their states. Railroads complied, but asked states to keep that information confidential.

Most states refused (McClatchy).

Since then, the industry argued that details about the crude oil rail shipments were sensitive from a security and customer protection standpoint and should not be available to the public, although it’s more likely they just don’t want to get hassled by a public trying to restrict shipments from going through their towns, across their rivers and along their coasts.

At first, the Federal Railroad Administration disagreed with the industry (Federal Register), saying that information about the shipments was not sensitive from any standpoint.

But they seemed to have quietly caved to industry pressure.

The twin forces of the new North American energy boom and the lack of pipeline capacity have combined to suddenly and dramatically increase crude oil shipping by rail. The energy boom is not going away, and the XL pipeline is on hold indefinitely, so the increase in rail will continue.

Crude is a nasty material, very destructive when it spills into the environment, and very toxic when it contacts humans or animals. It’s not even useful for energy, or anything else, until it’s chemically processed, or refined, into suitable products like naphtha, gasoline, heating oil, kerosene, asphaltics, mineral spirits, natural gas liquids, and a host of other products.

Thus, the need to get it to the refineries that can handle it, mostly along the coasts. Without new pipelines, it’s going to go by rail.

But fiery derailments of crude oil trains in North America are becoming almost frequent, along with many simple spills (dot111). Every minute of every day, shipments of two million gallons of crude are traveling over a thousand miles in hundred-tank-car trains (PHMSA.gov), delivering as much oil as is expected by the Keystone XL Pipeline.

A clear example of this danger came on July 6, 2013, when a train carrying 72 tank cars, and over 2,000,000 gallons of Bakken oil shale crude from the Williston Basin of North Dakota, derailed in the small town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Much of the town was destroyed and forty-seven people were killed.

According to billionaire Warren Buffett, these new federal standards for shipping crude oil by rail will definitely slow-up the industry, and as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway’s BNSF railroad and its Union Tank Car business, he should know (Tri-City Herald).

Buffett says railroads are critical for transporting potentially dangerous products across the United States, and he thinks it makes more sense for railroads to haul them instead of trucks or pipelines, a controversial stand given the historical data (Pick Your Poison).

So what is the safest way to move crude oil?

The short answer is: truck worse than train worse than pipeline worse than boat (Oilprice.com). But that’s only for human death and property destruction. For the amount of oil spilled per billion-ton-miles, it’s truck worse than pipeline worse than rail worse than boat (Congressional Research Service). Even more different is for environmental impact, where it’s boat worse than pipeline worse than truck worse than rail.

But the accident frequency trend is against rail. Oil trains are getting bigger and towing more and more tanker cars. From 1975 to 2012, trains were short and spills were rare and small, with about half of those years having no spills above a few gallons (EarthJustice.org). Then came 2013, in which more crude oil was spilled in U.S. rail incidents than was spilled in the previous thirty-seven years.

The danger seems to be centered in the rail tank cars themselves (The Coming Oil Train Wreck). If these new regulations makes the rail cars safer, makes them go slower and routes them around environmentally sensitive or vulnerable areas, that’s wonderful.

But I don’t see why we aren’t allowed to know when the crude oil trains are near us.

Crude By Rail, Diluted bitumen (Dilbit), Raw bitumen (undiluted tar sands heavy crude), Rawbit-By-Rail, Tar sands crude, Volatility

Canadian oil trains carrying more undiluted raw bitumen

May 5, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from Reuters
[Editor: How, you ask? Quote: ” …raw bitumen can be shipped on heated and coiled rail cars without diluent.” Less volatile, and therefore supposedly safer, unless you consider the overall safety of the planet. Cheaper for Canadian oil companies, though, so surely a hot ticket. They’re actually planning to DILUTE the stuff to send it down pipelines to a rail facility, then REMOVING some or all the diluent before loading it as “raw” bitumen – onto oil train tank cars. All for you and me – gee, no thanks. – RS]

Canadian oil trains shift to carry less-volatile crude

CALGARY, Alberta | By Nia Williams, May 5, 2015 1:00am EDT

May 5 (Reuters) – A growing share of Canadian oil-by-rail traffic is made up of tough-to-ignite undiluted heavy crude and raw bitumen, say industry executives, as companies scramble to cut expenditures with the price of crude down more than 40 percent since June.

By eliminating the cost of diluting with ultra-light condensate, heavy oil offers rail shippers an opportunity to claw back a few dollars per barrel in transportation costs.

Official data does not break down the different Canadian crudes shipped by rail but interviews with industry executives suggest undiluted heavy and raw bitumen shipments now make up roughly a quarter of the estimated 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) oil-by-rail market.

An added bonus is that heavy crude and bitumen are far less combustible than the Bakken and Canadian synthetic crudes involved in fiery crashes that spurred the Canadian and U.S. governments on Friday to tighten safety rules for trains carrying oil.

With very high boiling and flashpoints they fall outside Packing Groups 1 and 2, used to classify the more volatile types of crude oil for transport, and are already shipped in double-hulled cars, meaning they should be unaffected by last week’s tank car phase-out rules.

Oil-by-rail shipments have come under increased scrutiny and public outrage following 10 oil-train derailments involving fires in less than two years.

“The business is moving back to where it started, which is as a vehicle to move undiluted heavy oil,” said John Zahary, chief executive of Altex Energy, which operates crude-by-rail terminals.

Normally, rail is more expensive than shipping by pipeline, but undiluted rail shipments offer better returns because shippers do not need to add between 15 and 30 percent condensate per barrel, which often trades at a premium to U.S. benchmark crude.

Overall rail volumes have dipped in recent months, as the shrinking gap between U.S. and cheaper Canadian crude prices has eroded arbitrage opportunities. Total crude-by-rail export volumes, not including shipments within Canada, dipped 5 percent quarter-on-quarter in the final three months of 2014 to 173,000 bpd, according to the National Energy Board.

Still, Jarrett Zielinksi, chief executive officer of TORQ Transloading, said the proportion of heavy undiluted crude shipped is growing.

TORQ’s overall volumes fell to approximately 25,000 bpd this year, but it is now moving essentially 100 percent undiluted conventional heavy, up from around 85 percent last year.

Meanwhile, Altex moved around 35,000 bpd of conventional heavy last month and has just finalized plans for a 100,000 bpd unit train facility in Lashburn, Saskatchewan.

RAWBIT-BY-RAIL

Like heavy crude, raw bitumen can be shipped on heated and coiled rail cars without diluent. But it is a much smaller segment of the market due to the infrastructure needed at both loading and unloading facilities.

Canadian National Railway is pushing hard towards shipping more of this so-called neat bitumen to improve both economics and safety.

“It’s the wave of the future,” James Cairns, CN vice-president of petroleum and chemicals, told a recent conference. “When we move bitumen it doesn’t even move as a dangerous commodity. The safest crude you can move by rail is a heavy, neat bitumen crude.”

MEG Energy Corp and Keyera Corp have looked at building diluent recovery units. This would enable them to receive diluted bitumen by pipeline at rail terminals, remove all or some of the diluent and then load the raw bitumen onto railcars.

Both companies have put those plans on hold due to low oil prices but said they could be developed in future.

(Additional reporting by Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Alan Crosby)