Tag Archives: Ethanol

Bakken Crude, Derailment, Ethanol

LATEST DERAILMENT: Casselton … again

Repost from The Bismarck Tribune
[Editor: Note that this derailment took place near an ethanol plant!  According to one report, “The cars hit some propane tanks on the property, which is owned by BNSF, but there were no leaks or explosions.”  UPDATE, photos and video,Valley News Live, Fargo: Broken Rail Caused Trains to Derail.  – RS]

Two trains involved in derailment near Casselton, North Dakota

2014-11-14, By Adrian Glass-Moore, Forum News Service
Derailment
Lumber and debris is cleaned up Friday from the site of a BNSF derailment west of Casselton, N.D. David Samson / The Forum

CASSELTON, N.D. – For the second time in under a year, two BNSF Railway trains have derailed just west of Casselton.

“Welcome to Casselton, again,” is how Casselton Fire Chief Tim McLean greeted reporters at a news conference following Thursday night’s incident.

No one was injured when 12 or 13 empty crude oil cars from a westbound train and an unknown number of cars from an eastbound train carrying lumber derailed, McLean said.

“We dodged a bullet again,” said Casselton Mayor Lee Anderson, recalling the fiery explosion last December when a BNSF train carrying oil derailed west of here.

The mayor said he felt “disappointment” overall at Thursday’s incident, but was “pleased that it happened out of town and didn’t cause any serious problems like it did last time.”

Authorities found no hazardous materials or leaking tanker cars Thursday, McLean said. Lumber was scattered in the area, he said.

“There was severe track damage,” McLean said. “I’m sure they’ll be replacing the rails on both tracks.”

Authorities don’t know which train caused the derailment, said McLean, who added that BNSF will investigate the cause of the derailment.

Propane tanks on BNSF property were struck in the derailment, but do not appear to be compromised, a news release from the Sheriff’s Department said.

“Fortunately, this one here turned out better than last year’s,” McLean said.

Cass County sheriff’s deputies and other officials responded at 5:34 p.m. to a report of a derailment in the 3500 block of 153rd Avenue Southeast, near the Tharaldson Ethanol plant.

Steve Fox said he was working on the nearby McIntyre Pyle farm when the trains derailed.

Fox and his co-workers went out to retrieve two pickup trucks from a field about 5:30, he said.

“There was an eastbound train and I saw sparks off the last car of the eastbound train, so I assume that was the breaks,” he said.

As soon as Fox noticed tanker cars on the westbound side of the tracks, he and his co-workers quickly left because the memory of the explosion in December was still fresh, he said.

Fox said his reaction was, “Let’s get the pickup and let’s get the heck out of here.”

Last Dec. 30, a BNSF train hauling crude oil from western North Dakota derailed about a half-mile west of Casselton, causing a massive explosion. No one was hurt in the explosion, though it has prompted increased calls for safety in shipping oil by rail.

In the December derailment, 13 cars from a westbound soybean train derailed, and one of the derailed cars ended up on the adjacent track. An oncoming train hauling crude oil struck the derailed train, causing the two lead locomotives of the oil train and its first 21 cars to derail. In addition to the 20 oil-carrying tank cars, a train car carrying sand also derailed. In all, the soybean train had 112 cars and the oil train had 106 cars.

A National Transportation Safety Board report on the derailment said the soybean train was traveling about 28 mph when the crew applied emergency brakes. The oil train was going about 43 mph when the crew applied emergency brakes, and its estimated speed at the time of the crash was only 1 mph slower, 42 mph.

“We have a lot of things go through, a lot of them are oil, a lot of them are I don’t know what,” Anderson said Thursday night. “That’s obviously a concern. … They go through fast and they’ve wanted to go through faster.”

Anderson said his city’s request that trains go no faster than 40 mph within city limits has been respected.

“We can’t do anything outside of city limits,” where the two recent derailments took place, said Anderson, who took over as mayor in June. The city doesn’t even “have the authority to enforce the speed limit” in the city, he said.

Bakken Crude, California oil industry, Crude By Rail, Fracking, Oil prices

Wall Street Journal analyzes California fracking and crude-by-rail, discusses Valero Benicia plan, others

Repost from The Wall Street Journal
[Editor:  Following the money…  WSJ’s important analysis of refinery trends in California includes a brief discussion of current and proposed projects, including Valero Benicia, with quotes by Valero spokesperson Bill Day and Andrés Soto on behalf of Benicians For a Safe and Healthy Community.  Significant quote: “Opposition over safety has drawn out the permitting process in some cases, making some companies rethink their strategies. Valero Energy Corp. in March canceled plans to build an oil-train terminal near its Los Angeles refinery. But Valero still hopes to add a terminal to the company’s Benicia, Calif., plant, 35 miles northeast of San Francisco.   ¶“Every day that goes by that we’re not able to bring in lower cost North American oil, is another day that the Benicia refinery suffers competitively,” says spokesman Bill Day. The state last month asked Benicia for another safety review to better forecast the potential for derailments and other accidents.” – RS]

California Finally to Reap Fracking’s Riches

Crude-by-Rail From Bakken Shale Is Poised to Reverse State Refiners’ Rising Imports
By Alison Sider and Cassandra Sweet, Oct. 7, 2014
Tanker cars line up in Bakersfield, Calif., where Alon USA Energy recently received permission to build the state’s biggest oil-train terminal. The Bakersfield Californian/Associated Press

For the past decade, the U.S. shale boom has mostly passed by California, forcing oil refiners in the state to import expensive crude.

Now that’s changing as energy companies overcome opposition to forge ahead with rail depots that will get oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale.

Thanks in large measure to hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. has reduced oil imports from countries such as Iraq and Russia by 30% over the last decade. Yet in California, imports have shot up by a third to account for more than half the state’s oil supply.

“California refineries arguably have the most expensive crude slate in North America,” says David Hackett, president of energy consulting firm Stillwater Associates.

Part of the problem is that no major oil pipelines run across the Rocky Mountains connecting the state to fracking wells in the rest of the country. And building pipelines is a lengthy, expensive process.

Railroads are transporting a rising tide of low-price shale oil from North Dakota and elsewhere to the East and Gulf coasts, helping to keep a lid on prices for gasoline and other refined products.

Yet while California has enough track to carry in crude, the state doesn’t have enough terminals to unload the oil from tanker cars and transfer it to refineries on site or by pipeline or truck.

Just 500,000 barrels of oil a month, or 1% of California’s supply, moves by rail to the state today. New oil-train terminals by 2016 could draw that much in a day, if company proposals are successful.

Bakken oil since April has been about $15 a barrel cheaper than crude from Alaska and abroad, according to commodities-pricing service Platts. That would cover the $12 a barrel that it costs to ship North Dakota crude to California by rail, according to research firm Argus.

The state’s lengthy permitting process has contributed to the shortage of oil-train terminals. Some California lawmakers also want to impose fees on oil trains to pay for firefighting equipment and training to deal with derailments and explosions. And community and environmental activists have been waging war on oil trains. The dangers of carrying hazardous materials by rail were underscored Tuesday when a train carrying petroleum derailed in Canada.

But energy companies recently won two hard-fought victories that will pave the way for California to get more crude by rail.

Kern County officials last month gave Alon USA Energy Inc. permission to build the state’s biggest oil-train terminal. That project, which the company hopes to finish next year, is designed to receive 150,000 barrels of oil a day in Bakersfield, Calif., 110 miles north of Los Angeles.

The site was home to an asphalt refinery until 2012 when Alon shut it down because it struggled to turn a profit. Alon plans to reconfigure and restart the plant, but much of the oil transported there by train will move by pipeline to other companies’ refineries in California.

Plains All American Pipeline LP says it plans to open a 70,000-barrel-a-day oil-train terminal in Bakersfield this month.

And in northern California, a judge last month dismissed a lawsuit brought by environmental groups that challenged Kinder Morgan Inc.’s rail permits. The company is now receiving oil trains at a Richmond, Calif., terminal near San Francisco that was built to handle ethanol.

Opposition over safety has drawn out the permitting process in some cases, making some companies rethink their strategies. Valero Energy Corp. in March canceled plans to build an oil-train terminal near its Los Angeles refinery. But Valero still hopes to add a terminal to the company’s Benicia, Calif., plant, 35 miles northeast of San Francisco.

“Every day that goes by that we’re not able to bring in lower cost North American oil, is another day that the Benicia refinery suffers competitively,” says spokesman Bill Day. The state last month asked Benicia for another safety review to better forecast the potential for derailments and other accidents.

Several oil-train explosions in the last 15 months—including last year’s blast in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people—have struck fear in many residents along rail corridors.

“These railcars are not safe at any speed,” says Andrés Soto, a musician from Benicia who has helped organize campaigns against several oil-train projects. “We don’t see that there’s any way that they can actually make these projects fail-safe.”

Environmental-impact challenges have been one means that groups have used to delay oil trains.

Pittsburg, Calif., officials say WesPac Midstream LLC’s proposed oil-train terminal is on hold after the state attorney general asked for an expanded environmental review. The company is gathering answers for regulators and hopes to gain approval and start accepting oil trains at the site by late 2016, 40 miles east of San Francisco, a WesPac spokesman says.

Even if oil trains are kept off California tracks, more fracked crude still could flow to California. A 360,000-barrel-a-day oil-train terminal in Vancouver, Wash., aims to transfer North Dakota crude from tanker cars to barges that will sail the Columbia River about 100 miles northwest to the Pacific Ocean. From there, it is a quick trip down the coast to California ports.

That project also has faced stiff headwinds. Refiner Tesoro Corp. and transportation provider Savage Cos. were forced to postpone the start for the Vancouver terminal because of approval delays. While the governor hasn’t approved the project, the companies say they expect to be up and running next year.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Ethanol, Explosion, Hazmat notification

Oregon & California Senators ask for more oil train notifications

Repost from The Seattle Times
[Editor: Significant quote: “The four senators are…asking Foxx to lower the threshold for reporting to no higher than 20 carloads. They say most of the accidents with the exception of the Lac-Magentic disaster were caused by smaller and non-Bakken shipments and resulted in explosions, fires or environmental contamination. In one case, the train carried 14 carloads of flammable liquids; in another, 18 carloads.”  – RS]

Senators ask for more oil train notifications

By Gosia Wozniacka, Associated Press, September 30, 2014

PORTLAND, Ore. — Four West Coast senators are asking the federal government to expand a recent order for railroads to notify state emergency responders of crude oil shipments.

The letter, sent Monday to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, says railroads should supply states with advanced notification of all high-hazard flammable liquid transports — including crude from outside the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana, as well as ethanol and 71 other liquids.

The letter was signed by Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, and California senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.

In May, Foxx ordered railroads operating trains containing more than 1 million gallons of Bakken crude oil — or about 35 tank cars — to inform states that the trains traverse. The order came in the wake of repeated oil train derailments, including in Lac-Magentic, Quebec, where 47 people were killed.

The West Coast has received unprecedented amounts of crude oil by rail shipments in recent years. More than a dozen oil-by-rail refining or loading facilities and terminals have been built in California, Oregon and Washington, with another two dozen new projects or expansions in the works in the three states.

But according to the California Energy Commission, oil from the Bakken region accounted just for a fourth of crude-by-rail deliveries to California since 2012. Canadian oil — which travels to California through Washington and Oregon, as well as through Idaho and Montana — accounted for as much as 76 percent of California oil deliveries, the senators wrote.

Non-Bakken oil is also delivered to refineries and loading facilities in Oregon and Washington — including a terminal in Portland. A controversial proposed terminal in Vancouver, Washington, would also receive some non-Bakken crude.

Wyden and Merkley in June similarly urged Foxx to expand his order to cover crude from all parts of the U.S. and Canada. Transportation Safety Board Chairman Chris Hart wrote the two senators that month saying all crude shipments are flammable and a risk to communities and the environment — not just the Bakken oil.

The four senators are now repeating the same demand and are also asking Foxx to lower the threshold for reporting to no higher than 20 carloads. They say most of the accidents with the exception of the Lac-Magentic disaster were caused by smaller and non-Bakken shipments and resulted in explosions, fires or environmental contamination. In one case, the train carried 14 carloads of flammable liquids; in another, 18 carloads.

The Association of American Railroads has said the rail industry is complying with Foxx’s original order and the group would have to see the specifics of any proposed changes before commenting further.

Farming, Rail industry

Farmers Union Calls Ability to Deliver Grain Shipments by Rail at Harvest ‘Substantially Inadequate’

Repost from National Farmers Union
[Editor: This media alert does not name the massive expansion of crude by rail shipments in the upper Midwest as the cause for lack of rail cars for shipping farm commodities, but there is little doubt this is the problem.  – RS]

August 6, 2014
Contact: David Thews, 202-554-1600,  dthews@nfudc.org
NFU Calls Ability to Deliver Grain Shipments by Rail at Harvest ‘Substantially Inadequate’
Warns Surface Transportation Board Farmers May Be Forced to Dump Grain

WASHINGTON (August 6, 2014) – National Farmers Union (NFU) President Roger Johnson warned the Surface Transportation Board (STB) that BNSF Railway (BNSF) and Canadian Pacific (CP)’s ability to deliver grain and ethanol at harvest are “substantially inadequate” and are resulting in farmers piling grain on the ground because of lack of transportation options.

“We are especially concerned regarding wheat, since harvest has already started and grain remains in the bin from last year’s harvest,” noted Johnson in a letter today to the STB chairman and vice chairman.  “While BNSF claims that the total number of late shipments of wheat has declined nationwide, 95.42 percent of all past due cars are concentrated in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. BNSF has promised to improve their performance, but we are still subject to delays and Average Train Speed at year-long lows,” the letter notes.

“Grain shipments in North Dakota are critical,” said Johnson.   BNSF reported in its latest weekly update that there have been 2,399 delayed rail cars with an average delay of 23.6 days. CP reported 22,457 open requests with an average of 11.71 weeks.   The letter cites anecdotal evidence from four different grain elevators indicating that their oldest orders are from early March and shuttle orders are up to 2,000 cars behind. “These numbers are staggering and simply unacceptable,” he said.

Johnson notes that in South Dakota, NFU members are hearing about significant delays directly from local grain elevators across the state. At one particular elevator that handles 15 million bushels of grain per year, 3 million of those bushels will not move before this year’s harvest.  “Due to the backlog, farmers are now dumping wheat on the ground because the elevators will not take on the increased liability,” he said.

Johnson also voiced his concern about the ethanol industry, which relies heavily on rail for transportation.  “While the June 20 decision rightfully addressed grain shipments, we encourage STB to consider shipments of ethanol as a priority as well,” he said.  “Failure to bring ethanol to market will hurt consumers because of higher gasoline prices, and will work against our efforts to offset imports of foreign oil.”

A full copy of the letter is here.

National Farmers Union has been working since 1902 to protect and enhance the economic well-being and quality of life for family farmers, ranchers and rural communities through advocating grassroots-driven policy positions adopted by its membership.

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