Tag Archives: Derailment

Bakken Crude, Benicia CA, Bridge safety, California, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Fire, Hazmat notification, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Oil Industry, Oil prices, Rail inspection, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail, Volatility

Crude oil train shipments dwindle in California, for now

March 12, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from The Sacramento Bee

Crude oil train shipments dwindle in California, for now

By Tony Bizjak, 03/11/2015 9:47 PM

A BNSF train carries Bakken crude oil in the hills outside the Feather River Canyon last June. Jake Miille / Special to The Bee

A year ago, California officials nervously braced for an influx of milelong trains carrying volatile crude oil to refineries in the Valley and on the coast – trains similar to the one that exploded two years ago in Canada, killing 47 people.

The trains never arrived. Although tank cars full of oil now roll daily through cities in the Midwest and East, provoking fears of crashes and fires, the number of oil trains entering California has remained surprisingly low, state safety regulators say, no more than a handful a month. In recent weeks, they appear to have dwindled to almost nothing.

The reasons appear to be mainly economic.

“Crude oil shipments from out of state have virtually stopped,” said Paul King, rail safety chief at the California Public Utilities Commission. “Our information is that no crude oil trains are expected for the rest of this month.”

Most notably, the BNSF Railway recently stopped running a 100-car train of volatile oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota through the Feather River Canyon and midtown Sacramento to the Bay Area. The trains, several a month, carried an estimated 3 million gallons of fuel each.

Bakken oil, a lighter type of crude, similar to gasoline, has gained a fearsome reputation since it entered the national scene a few years ago. A string of Bakken train explosions around the country prompted the federal government to issue a warning last year about the oil’s unusual volatility and launch efforts to write stiffer regulations on rail transport, including a proposal to require sturdier tank cars for oil.

Two more Bakken train derailments and explosive fires recently in West Virginia and Illinois triggered a new round of complaints that the federal government is dragging its heels in finalizing those regulations.

The BNSF train through Sacramento was believed to be the only train in California carrying 100 cars of Bakken oil. PUC rail safety deputy director King said his commission’s rail monitors have been told by owners of a Richmond oil transfer station in the Bay Area that refiners stopped the shipments in November as global oil prices dropped.

California Energy Commission fuels specialist Gordon Schremp said lower prices for other types of oil have made Bakken marginally less marketable in California, although that could easily change in the future.

Other projects, like a Valero Refining Co. plan to run two 50-car oil trains daily through Sacramento beginning this spring to its Benicia plant, have not yet gotten off the ground, in part because of political opposition. Under pressure from state officials, including Attorney General Kamala Harris, Benicia recently announced it is redoing part of its environmental and risk analysis of the Valero rail project. Valero has said it intends to ship lighter fuels, but has declined to say whether those will be Bakken.

State safety officials said the slowdown provides a bit more time to provide hazardous-materials training for more firefighters, as well as to put together a state rail-bridge inspection program and to upgrade disaster and waterway spill preparedness. But state officials said they still feel like they’re playing catch-up as they prepare for existing and future potential rail hazards.

“This apparent reprieve may seem helpful, but we still have substantial amounts of … hazardous materials traveling across California’s rail lines,” said Kelly Huston, deputy director of the state Office of Emergency Services. “It only takes one train to create a major disaster.”

Oil prices have begun rising again, and state officials say they expect Bakken shipments to Richmond and potentially elsewhere to be back on track at some point. “We don’t have any concrete info about when it will resume,” the PUC’s King said. “When prices come up, it is likely to resume, and that could be in months.”

Federal emergency rules require railroads to report to states when they run trains carrying more than 1 million gallons of Bakken crude, and then again when that amount changes by 25 percent or more. BNSF sent the state Office of Emergency Services a brief notice on Wednesday acknowledging it had not shipped more than 1 million gallons of Bakken on any train in the last week. The notice does not say how long ago the shipments stopped or when they may resume.

BNSF officials have contended in letters to the state that shipping information is proprietary and should be kept secret. A BNSF spokeswoman declined this week to discuss shipments with The Sacramento Bee, writing in an email, “Information regarding hazardous material shipments is only provided to emergency responders.”

King of the PUC said his monitors estimate that eight or more non-Bakken crude oil trains had been entering the state monthly from Canadian and Colorado oil fields recently, headed to refineries or transfer stations. The Canadian oil, called tar sands, is not considered as explosive as Bakken, but two tar-sands trains derailed and exploded in recent weeks in Ontario, creating fires that lasted several days.

The national concern about crude oil rail shipments follows a boom in domestic oil production, notably in North Dakota, where hydraulic-fracturing advances have freed up immense deposits of shale oil. Lacking pipeline access, North Dakota companies have turned to trains to ship the oil mainly to East and Gulf Coast refineries and to Washington state. Crude by rail shipments in the United States skyrocketed from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 436,000 in 2013, according to congressional data.

California continues to produce a sizable amount of its own oil in Kern County and receives marine shipments from Alaska and foreign sources. Still, a recent state energy-needs analysis estimates the state could receive as much as 23 percent of its oil via train or barge from continental sources, including North Dakota, Canada, Texas and other Western states, in the coming years. That estimate is based on plans by refineries in Benicia, San Luis Obispo and Kern County to build rail facilities that can accommodate large crude transports.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Massive increase in crude-by-rail

String of ‘Bomb Train’ Explosions in the US and Canada Casts Doubt On Proposed Safety Upgrades

March 11, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from VICE News

String of ‘Bomb Train’ Explosions in the US and Canada Casts Doubt On Proposed Safety Upgrades

By Peter Rugh, March 11, 2015 | 11:55 am

explosion Over the last half-decade, North American oil by rail transports have exploded. Literally.

Driven by oil booms in Alberta, Canada’s boreal forest and in the Bakken Shale formation in North Dakota, the amount of oil hauled over the nation’s rail system has surged to more than a million barrels a day.

But the number of fiery derailments has also spiked. There were 38 derailments involving fires and ruptures on the rails in 2014, up from 20 in 2009, even as the total number of accidents declined by 21 percent over the same period.

US regulators are drawing up new rules governing crude by rail shipments that will likely be released this spring. But a fresh series of explosions on the tracks might prove their approach too limited.

“We keep seeing exploding bomb trains on different rail carriers, going different speeds, with different rail cars, with different kinds of oil,” said Eric De Place with the Sightline Institute, a non-profit environmental watchdog group. “The fundamentals here are that the whole enterprise is unsafe. I don’t know how much more clearly the universe could underscore that point.”

Last Saturday, first responders in Galena, Illinois battled flames from a five-car explosion near the Wisconsin border. Eight hundred miles away, in Gogama, Ontario, seven tanker cars caught fire — the second crude train to explode in the Canadian province since February 14th. On February 17th, in West Virginia, a 19-car crude explosion blackened the sky above the town of Mount Carbon. Each of these derailments — and others in Casselton, North Dakota and Lynchburg, Virginia — has left widespread destruction and environmental damage in their wake. In Lac-Mégantic, Quebec in 2013 an oil train went off the rails, exploded, and killed 47 people.

‘The proposed rules are almost laughably inadequate.’

Last July, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) announced it was preparing new rules governing crude shipments in order to address growing concern about the safety and environmental impact of the boom in oil by rail shipments. Publically at least, the announcement was met with applause by both the oil industry and railroads.

“Our safety goal is zero incidents,” Brian Straessle, a spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute (API) and a former aide to Congressman Tom Price, a Republican representing Georgia, told VICE News. “Reaching that goal will require meaningful improvements to safety that are guided by science and data as part of a comprehensive approach to better prevent, mitigate, and respond to accidents.”

“API supports upgrades to the tank car fleet beyond current designs,” Straessle added.

But the draft DOT regulations would only impact a specific type of oil, crude from the Bakken shale region of North Dakota. And they focus on retrofitting or phasing out older model DOT-111 cars from Bakken crude transports.

But, unlike previous derailments, which sparked DOTs drive for safety improvements, the trains that burst into flames in Ontario recently were carrying heavy tar sands bitumen, less flammable than Bakken crude — but flammable nonetheless. In its draft rules, the DOT estimates “about 23,000 cars will be transferred to Alberta tar sands service” as a result of the new regulations and it “expects no cars will be retired.” The Canadian government is also implementing crude by rail reforms that are expected to harmonize with those of the US.
In all four derailments since February 14th, as well as the wreck in Lynchburg, newer or retrofitted cars, touted by the industry as safer were involved. These cars, known as Casualty Prevention Circular-1232s (CPC-1232s) already meet one of the possible design specifications the DOT is considering mandating for Bakken transports.

In other words: the type of cars diminish the risk of explosion and rupture have proven to be inadequate.

The railroad industry previously began standardizing the CPC-1232 design, which can apply to a range of car models, voluntarily in 2011. The CPC-1232 standard allows for exposed valves on the bottom of the tankers that often get severed during derailments, spilling fuel, as has often been the case with legacy DOT-111s.

Additionally, the shell casing on older DOT-111s, a key factor in whether the cars will explode, is 7/16 of an inch thick; on CPC-1232s it is a sixteenth of an inch thicker. The DOT is considering another option: mandating 9/16-inch shells. The thicker the shell, however, the less oil fits in each tanker, cutting profits for shippers who have challenged this aspect of the rules proposal.

Still, the American Association of Railroads (AAR), which introduced the CPC-1232 standard, claims, like the API, it is open to reform.

“The freight rail industry has been calling for tougher tank car standards for years and wants all tank cars carrying crude oil, including the CPC-1232, to be upgraded by retrofitting or taken out of service,” AAR spokesman, Ed Greenberg, told VICE News. “AAR believes every tank car carrying crude oil today needs to be upgraded and made safer, and we support an aggressive retrofit or replacement program.”

But De Place doesn’t think any of the DOT’s proposed regulations will do much good.

“The proposed rules are almost laughably inadequate,” he said. “If American lives weren’t at stake, I would take it as comic relief. What they are proposing are very modest tweaks to the existing system and a long phase-out period that will allow the industry to run even the most dangerous cars for years to come.”

Under the DOT’s current proposal, older DOT-111s carrying Bakken crude won’t be ordered off the rails until October 2017.

De Place insists there’s a simpler, safer solution. “The government should issue an emergency order suspending the transport of crude oil immediately,” he said. “Anything short of that is playing Russian Roulette.”

The DOT did not respond to a request for comment from VICE News.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Petroleum distillates, Synthetic crude, Tar sands crude, Valero Energy Corporation

Trains in Canada derailments carried synthetic crude for Valero

March 11, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from Reuters

Trains in Canada derailments carried synthetic crude for Valero

TORONTO, Mar 10, 2015 12:56pm EDT

(Reuters) – The two oil trains that derailed and burst into flames in recent weeks in northern Ontario were both carrying synthetic crude to Valero Energy Corp’s refinery near Quebec City, the U.S.-based company said on Tuesday.

Saturday’s CN Rail derailment came less than a month after another CN train carrying oil went off the tracks and ignited in northern Ontario. The railway had said both were carrying crude from Alberta, but declined to give their exact destination.

“We take safety very seriously, so we’re concerned anytime there’s an incident,” said Valero spokesman Bill Day. “Despite the number of rail incidents recently, it is very rare for cargo not to be delivered to its destination safely.”

Day said all of the rail companies Valero works with, including CN Rail, have good safety records.

Synthetic crude is produced from Alberta’s oil sands in upgrader plants, and usually commands a premium to conventional crudes because it is lighter and easier to refine into valuable byproducts such as gasoline.

Valero’s Jean Gaulin refinery is in Levis, across the St. Lawrence River from Quebec City.

In May 2013, the company said it would build a rail off-loading facility at the Jean Gaulin refinery so it could start using Western Canadian crude rather than relying on pricier imports. The company told Reuters it would take light, sweet Western Canadian crude rather than heavier oil sands crude.

Shipments of North American crude to the refinery ramped up early last year. On a July earnings call, the company said North American grades made up 83 percent of the refinery’s feedstock in the second quarter of 2014, up from 45 percent in the first quarter and 8 percent higher than a year earlier.

Separately on Tuesday, CN spokesman Jim Feeny said the train that derailed in February had been carrying petroleum distillates in addition to synthetic crude.

“The contents of the tank cars are a subject of interest and the TSB will be testing the contents to determine what they were,” said John Cottreau, spokesman for Canada’s Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the incidents.

In a note to shippers on Tuesday, CN said a temporary bypass track would likely be completed by late afternoon, reopening its main line in northern Ontario.

(Reporting by Allison Martell in Toronto, and Scott Haggett and Nia Williams in Calgary; Editing by Alan Crosby)

Bakken Crude, Benicia City Council, Benicia Planning Commission, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Oil stabilization, Positive Train Control, Tank car design, Train braking systems, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail, Valero Energy Corporation

BENICIA HERALD LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Dr. James Egan: Deny Valero’s application

March 10, 2015 Roger Straw

From The Benicia Herald (Benicia Herald letters appear only in the print edition)
[Editor: Dr. Egan’s letter is a welcome contribution, expressing the growing conviction of many throughout North America, that crude-by-rail is simply unsafe under current conditions, and should be not be permitted at this time. See also Dr. Egan’s 9/14/14 comments addressing the Valero Crude By Rail Draft EIR. – RS]

Timely decision on crude by rail warranted: Deny Valero’s application

By James Egan, M.D., Benicia, March 10, 2015

The headline in the Feb. 5, 2015 edition of The Herald, “Another delay as crude-by-rail project debate enters 3^rd year,” signals sympathy toward the Valero Benicia Refinery as regards its Crude by Rail (CBR) Use Permit Application, currently before the Planning Commission. While it is difficult working up crocodile tears for a multi-billion-dollar international oil corporation, the energy and expense invested in forwarding this project bear acknowledgement, and a timely decision on the application should be made out of fairness to the applicant. To that end, I would like to suggest that the Planning Commission and the City Council have enough information available to take action at any time. The application should be denied on the basis of rail safety.

On Feb. 17 of this year a crude oil train derailed and exploded in Mount Carbon, W.Va. Three million gallons of Bakken crude spilled from 26 ruptured tank cars, forcing the evacuation of two nearby towns. Two days prior, another oil train derailed and caught fire in Ontario, Canada. Last Thursday, March 5, 21 cars carrying Bakken crude derailed, split and exploded near Galena, Ill. Another of the dozens of oil- or ethanol-train accidents involving a fire, derailment or significant fuel spill reported in the U.S. or Canada since 2006 was the Lynchburg, Va. derailment and fire in April 2014.

The significance of this particular series of railway disasters to the citizens of Benicia is that they all involved CPC-1232 tank cars, the same cars that Valero would use for the transportation of crude to its facility in Benicia, according to the Draft Environmental Impact Report.

In a Feb. 23 editorial titled, “Get rid of exploding tank cars,” the San Francisco Chronicle states that “Valero Energy Co. has agreed to haul Bakken crude to its Benicia bayside refinery in the newer CPC-1232 cars as part of its city permit application to revamp its facilities to receive crude by rail rather than by oceangoing tanker. But that promise now appears inadequate to protect the safety of those in Benicia as well as in other communities – Roseville, Sacramento, Davis – along the line.”

The same edition of the Chronicle details a report from the Department of Transportation predicting that trains hauling crude oil or ethanol will derail 15 times in 2015 and average 10 times yearly over the next two decades, causing $4.5 billion in damage with potential fatalities of more than 200 people in a given accident. This may actually be an underestimate based on recent major derailment rates.

Friends and foes of CBR alike agree that the transportation of crude oil by rail involves inherent risk. Can’t we also agree that the risk should be reduced to the greatest extent possible before inviting these potentially explosive trains to Benicia? Lowering the risk of tank car derailment, rupture and explosion now should translate into saved human lives and prevention of environmental disasters in the future.

The danger can, in fact, be mitigated. The crude can be stabilized prior to its transportation by extraction of its most volatile components. North Dakota has implemented standards making this mandatory for Bakken crude, but many feel that their new guidelines are overly lax. New federal regulations due to be released in May could further address this, as would rail safety measures such as Positive Train Control and electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. New, safer tank cars designed specifically to carry this type of crude have been designed and are in production.

Unfortunately, the new federal guidelines will likely require years for full enforcement, and complete phaseout of the existing, unreliable tank car fleet by newer, stronger cars, such as the Greenbrier HM-251, will also require years of effort.

Accordingly, if we agree that the risks of transportation of crude by rail should be absolutely minimized prior to approving the CRB project, we have to acknowledge that this is currently beyond Valero’s reach and the Use Permit Application should be denied.

Those who would roll the dice and approve the current application should consider how comfortable they will feel with that decision once they find themselves in a front row seat at the Park/Bayshore railroad crossing watching fifty tank cars containing 1,470,000 gallons of potentially explosive crude rumble by on the same spur line that has seen derailment of five train cars since Nov. 4, 2013 (in addition to the two locomotives that derailed on Sept. 7, 2014 near the port).

Kudos to Planning Commission members for the time and energy spent on fairly evaluating this project. It would seem that as time has passed the correct path forward has become much clearer. At this point, the ongoing health and well-being of all Benicians should hold foremost importance in the decision-making process. Their protection is the least we can expect from our city government.

James Egan, M.D.