Tag Archives: Montana

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Rail Safety, Reid vapor pressure levels, Volatile gases

‘Micro refineries’ a solution to oil-train woes, energy firm says

Repost from Reuters in The Jamestown Sun

‘Micro refineries’ a solution to oil-train woes, energy firm says

By Reuters Media Today

WASHINGTON – A handful of small refineries in North Dakota could remove dangerous gas from oil train cargoes and make shipments from the state’s productive Bakken shale area safer on the tracks, according to a company which has pitched the idea to regulators.

The proposal from Quantum Energy Inc would strip propane and other volatile gas from North Dakota crude and send much of the remaining fuel to distant refineries.

Williston, North Dakota-based Quantum hopes to build five “micro refineries” near railheads already handling Bakken crude to strip about 100,000 barrels a day of fuel from that stream.

Some of the resultant gas could add to household fuel supplies in the upper Midwest while making Bakken-origin rail cargoes safer, Quantum’s executive vice president Russell Smith told Reuters.

“Our plan solves a couple of important problems,” said Smith, who earlier this month pitched the idea in meetings with White House officials and Transportation Department regulators mulling oil train safety.

Besides light fuels, Smith said, the Quantum facilities would also pull a stream of diesel gasoline from Bakken sources to help slake demand in the region. Executives hope to have permits and financing to break ground on at least one of the proposed refineries before year-end.

The company expects that each processing center would cost about $500 million.

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation said officials could not comment on their deliberations about oil train safety or meetings with industry.

In the coming weeks, though, officials are expected to outline measures to improve oil train safety such as demanding tougher tank cars, slower speeds and diversions around urban centers.

Several oil cargoes from North Dakota’s Bakken have exploded during rail accidents in the last year. Some officials say toughened tank cars should be used to move such fuel.

Regulators have homed in on the vapor pressure of Bakken fuel, one index of the explosion risk.

Industry-funded tests of Bakken fuel have returned vapor pressure readings of 15 pounds per square inch on the commonly-used Reid scale, while Quantum Energy believes it could bring that reading below 6 psi, similar to fuels like ethanol and heavy crude.

“The crude is much less volatile once you take these light tops off,” said Smith, referring to the gassy share of Bakken fuel.

Some oil industry officials, though, see little need to reduce vapor pressure in oil train cargoes and think Quantum might have misjudged demand for gas.

“There will be a market for propane, potentially in North Dakota, but what about the other components they’ll be removing?” said Kari Cutting, vice president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council.

Pentane, butane and other light gases are not easily marketable in North Dakota currently and may have to be shipped to buyers such as far-off chemical plants in tank cars fit to carry dangerous gas.

Smith said Quantum expects to find buyers that would welcome the portion of Bakken fuel not marketed close to the source. The Bakken field extends into Montana and Canada’s Saskatchewan and Manitoba provinces.

California Regulation, Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.)

California lawmakers assail Feds for timid handling of rail oil shipments

Repost from The Ames Tribune, Ames, Iowa
[Editor:  The 3-hour California Joint Legislative Oversight Hearing on Transport of California Crude Oil by Rail  can be viewed here.  – RS]

State lawmakers assail Feds for timid handling of rail oil shipments

By Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, June 20, 2014

SACRAMENTO — State lawmakers, concerned about the safety risks associated with a sixfold increase in crude oil shipments by rail into California, hoped on Thursday to get an update on what the federal government is doing.

But a regional official of the Federal Railroad Administration who had been scheduled to testify before a joint committee hearing regarding crude oil rail transport was a last-minute no-show.

Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, said she received a call on the eve of the hearing from a high-level federal administrator in Washington, D.C., informing her that no one from the agency would testify.

It will take coordination between the state and federal governments to protect California from a spike in accidents that has led to fiery derailments and oil spills elsewhere, Pavley noted.

“We don’t have that cooperation yet,” she said. “There are a lot of things they can do. They need to step up to the plate.”

Other lawmakers — who are mostly powerless to act because they are pre-empted by federal law — shared her view.

A point of contention is the belief of many state and local officials that information about upcoming shipments of carloads of highly flammable crude oil should be publicly available. But railroads, citing national security concerns, have released that information only to emergency-response agencies, which must agree not to publicly disclose it.

“We’ve seen what happens when they explode,” said Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, chairwoman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Management. “It sure seems like in California our hands are tied. There’s so little we can do.”

Jackson asserted that security concerns should dictate public disclosure.

“National security means the security of people who live in the nation,” she said.

Under pressure from state officials in Montana, it appears federal officials may have decided to relent on that issue.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Transportation has ordered railroads to give state officials specifics on oil-train routes, and Montana officials intend to publicly release that information next week.

Rail-oil shipments have skyrocketed across the United States and Canada in recent months because there are no pipelines from which to ship oil extracted from the Bakken shale fields in North Dakota.

In the last year, derailments have resulted in fiery explosions in three Canadian provinces and in Virginia, and there have been more rail accidents involving oil spills than over the previous 30 years combined.

In Northern California, the issue has become front-page news in recent weeks, as city officials in the East San Francisco Bay city of Benicia are considering a permit application from a Valero oil refinery that would enable the refinery to accept two, 50-car trains every day.

If that refinery expansion is approved, the trains would wind through a narrow mountain pass in the Feather River Valley, and then pass through the populated corridor from Sacramento to Benicia, passing within a quarter mile of 27 schools.

Similar scenarios could unfold elsewhere around the state, testified Gordon Schremp of the state Energy Commission. He said six refinery projects have been proposed to accommodate rail shipments — two in Bakersfield, and one each in Benicia, Pittsburg, Santa Maria and the Port of Stockton.

As those projects come on line, Schremp said the commission expects the percentage of oil coming into California by rail to increase from 1 percent today to 23 percent by 2016. Most imported oil now arrives in the state either via marine tankers or by pipeline from Alaska.

A report issued last week by the state’s Interagency Rail Safety Task Force lists thousands of miles of track it identifies as “areas of concern.”

The new state budget that Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign Friday includes a 6.5 cent per-barrel fee on refineries to fund an expansion of the state Office of Oil Spills and Prevention and also hire new rail, bridge and railcar inspectors at the state Public Utilities Commission.

State lawmakers, who are pre-empted from taking such steps as requiring trains to take specific routes and imposing state-based safety standards on tanker cars, agreed their primary focus needs to be on preparing emergency agencies to respond to rail accidents involving toxic materials such as crude oil.

“This is an unusually fast-growing development,” said Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis. “It’s really important to have emergency procedures in place.”

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Local Regulation, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail inspection, Rail routing, Tank car design, Train speed

NRDC – It Could Happen Here: The Exploding Threat of Crude by Rail in California

Repost from Natural Resources Defense Council
[Editor: Excellent resources….  Be sure to see the downloadable fact sheet and blast zone maps for Bakersfield, Benicia, Davis, Martinez, Pittsburg, Richmond and Sacramento that follow below this article.  – RS]

It Could Happen Here: The Exploding Threat of Crude by Rail in California

Diane Bailey  |  June 18, 2014

Key Points

  • More crude oil was transported by rail in North America in 2013 than in the past five years combined. Millions of Californians live near crude-by-rail routes and could face extreme safety risks.
  • Federal regulators have few safeguards in place to protect communities and the environment from accidents, spills and explosions resulting from the race to move millions of barrels of crude by rail.
  • NRDC calls on lawmakers to expedite rules mandating commonsense practices, including removal of defective tank cars, rerouting around sensitive areas, and requiring disclosure regarding the content of all shipments and relevant risks to local residents.
  • Nearly four million Bay Area and Central/San Joaquin Valley residents are at increased risk from oil train accidents occurring with the proliferation of new crude by rail terminal proposals. But dangerous crude oil train derailments are preventable if the mandatory safety measures NRDC recommends are enacted.

Soda cans on wheels. That’s what some call the dangerous rail tank cars that have suddenly become ubiquitous across the American landscape. In the rush to transport land-locked unconventional new crude oil sources, old rail lines running through communities across America are now rattling with thousands of cars filled with crude oil. Neither the cars nor the railroads were built for this purpose. Worse, federal regulators have few safeguards in place to protect communities and the environment from accidents, spills and explosions resulting from the race to move millions of barrels of crude by rail.

More crude oil was transported by rail in North America in 2013 than in the past five years combined, most of it extracted from the Bakken shale of North Dakota and Montana. In California, the increase in crude by rail has been particularly dramatic, from 45,000 barrels in 2009 to 6 million barrels in 2013. As “rolling pipelines” of more than 100 rail cars haul millions of gallons of crude oil through our communities, derailments, oil spills and explosions are becoming all too common. Between March 2013 and May 2014, there were 12 significant oil train derailments in the United States and Canada. As oil companies profit, communities bear the cost.

Californians Living Near Crude By Rail Routes

A new report from the State of California Interagency Rail Safety Working Group outlines serious vulnerabilities along California rail lines including close proximity to many population centers, numerous earthquake faults, a shortage of adequate emergency response capacity, many areas of vulnerable natural resources, and a number of “high hazard areas” for derailments, which are generally located along waterways and fragile natural resource areas. Millions of Californians live near crude by rail routes and could face extreme safety risks. Currently, there are five major new crude by rail terminals in the planning stages and two recently converted crude oil rail terminals that could collectively bring in up to seven or more mile long trains each day through metropolitan areas like Sacramento, putting up to 3.8 million people in harm’s way.

Explosions and Spills Threaten Lives

“Each tank car of crude holds the energy equivalent of 2 million sticks of dynamite or the fuel in a widebody jetliner,” write Russell Gold and Betsy Morris in the Wall Street Journal. In July 2013, an unattended oil train carrying 72 carloads of crude oil from North Dakota exploded in the center of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, near the U.S. border. The resulting inferno killed 47 people and destroyed much of the town center. Some 1.6 million gallons of crude oil was spilled. In the months following this devastating event, several more North American oil train derailments illustrated the sobering recurring public safety and environmental threats of catastrophic derailments due to the virtually unregulated surge in crude by rail. In 2013, rail cars spilled more crude oil than nearly the previous four decades combined (1.14 million gallons in 2013 compared to 800,000 gallons from 1975 to 2012).

Communities Lack Information And Control Over Hazardous Rail Shipments

Municipalities across the country are demanding increased communication about rail shipments of crude oil through their communities. However, crude oil — and other hazardous materials shipped by rail — have been exempted from the disclosure requirement of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). While the federal government finally directed rail companies to disclose this critical information to emergency responders, the general public remains in the dark about the nature of mile long tanker trains hurtling through their backyards at dangerous speed. Nobody has a choice about what gets transported through their community, how dangerous the cargo is, how frequently it goes through or whether it could be rerouted to more remote areas. Of the more than 3.8 million Californians who will be put at risk by proposed new crude by rail terminals, most are unlikely to even be aware of the significant new risks that they face.

Outdated and Dangerous Tank Cars Are Used to Carry Crude

Most of the rail tank cars used to carry flammable liquids, including crude oil are old “DOT-111s,” which are widely known to be unsafe. Speaking at a farewell address at the National Press Club in April 2014, outgoing National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chairwoman Deborah Hersman repeated a long-held NTSB position that unmodified DOT-111 tank cars — non-pressurized rail tank cars that accident investigators report are easily punctured or ruptured during a derailment — are not safe to carry hazardous liquids. “Carrying corn oil is fine, carrying crude oil is not,” she said.

Thus, in 2009, the NTSB recommended these tank cars be equipped with additional safety features. Since October 2011, new rail tank cars built for transporting crude oil have incorporated these features, such as the use of head shields, thicker tank material, and pressure-relief devices. Yet regulators have not eliminated the use of the older, unmodified DOT-111 cars for carrying oil — out of 39,000 DOT-111 tank cars now used to carry crude, two-thirds still do not meet these modern safety standards. The Department of Transportation, simply recommended that shippers stop using these cars to transport oil, but they do not require it.

Commonsense Safeguards for Crude-by-Rail Are Overdue

In the longer term, our health depends on cleaner, renewable energy and moving away from fossil fuels. In the immediate term, we must tighten safety regulations on the rail transport of crude oil, or run the risk of devastating consequences. NRDC calls on lawmakers to expedite rules mandating commonsense practices, including but not limited to the following:

  1. Remove Defective, Dangerous Tankers from Crude by Rail Service: The existing fleet of dangerous DOT-111 tank cars must be taken out of crude oil service immediately.
  2. Impose Safer Speed Limits: Crude oil unit trains must adhere to speed limits that significantly reduce the possibility of an explosion in the event of a derailment.
  3. Reroute Around Sensitive Areas: The National Transportation Safety Board recommendation that crude oil trains avoid heavily populated areas and otherwise sensitive areas must become mandatory.
  4. Require Disclosure: Information regarding the content of all shipments and relevant risks and emergency procedures should be made accessible to local residents.
  5. Provide Emergency Responder Resources: States should assess fees on shippers and carriers to fully cover the costs of providing emergency response services and safeguarding the public from oil trains, and ensure that there is adequate emergency response capacity.
  6. Make Additional Operational Safety and Oversight Improvements: Unit trains of crude oil and other hazardous materials should be placed in the highest risk category of Hazmat shipments; and many other operational improvements should be made. Additional inspections of crude oil trains are also critical, including the funding necessary for more rail safety personnel.
  7. Exercise Local Government Powers:
    • Local governments and states can require cumulative risk analysis of crude oil rail infrastructure and increased rail traffic.
    • Local governments should thoroughly evaluate all of the environmental and public health and safety risks of crude oil rail terminals that require land use permits or other forms of local approval.
    • Local governments should reject any new crude oil rail terminals within one mile of sensitive sites such as homes, schools, daycares, and hospitals.

Crude oil train accidents are preventable. All Californians should be calling for the crude oil and rail safety standards listed here.

Read More…

Fact Sheet (PDF)

portable document format

Maps: Crude Oil Train
Derailment Risk Zones
in California

Bakken Crude, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Rail industry, Tank car retrofit

BNSF Railway: Future of crude by rail depends on safety

Repost from The Kansas City Star
[Editor: Significant quote by BNSF Executive Chairman Matt Rose: “Without focus on the elements of safety, the social license to haul crude by rail will disappear, to say nothing of the regulatory agencies’ response.”  – RS]

BNSF: Future of crude by rail depends on safety

James MacPherson, The Associated Press | 2014-05-21

BISMARCK, N.D. — The future of crude oil shipments by train depends on proving to the public that it can be done safely, the head of BNSF Railway Co. said Wednesday.

“Without focus on the elements of safety, the social license to haul crude by rail will disappear, to say nothing of the regulatory agencies’ response,” BNSF Executive Chairman Matt Rose told several hundred people at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck.

BNSF is based in Fort Worth, Texas, but is part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., based in Omaha, Nebraska. The railroad is the biggest player in the rich oil fields of Montana and North Dakota, hauling about 75 percent of the more than 1 million barrels that moves out of the region daily.

Rose told the conference that the railroad is committed to preventing accidents like its Dec. 30 crash outside Casselton that left an ominous cloud over the town and led some residents to evacuate. The disaster in the small town west of Fargo was one of at least eight major accidents during the last year, including an explosion of Bakken crude in Lac-Megantic, Quebec that killed 47 people. Other trains carrying Bakken crude have since derailed and caught fire in Alabama, New Brunswick and Virginia.

Rose last month joined U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx at the North Dakota crash site, where options for enhancing tank car standards were discussed.

The crash occurred when a train carrying soybeans derailed in front of a BNSF oil train, causing that train to also derail and set off fiery explosions. The crash spilled about 400,000 gallons of crude oil, which took nearly three months to clean up.

Rose said the railroad has learned from the disaster and has done such things as decreased train speeds in some areas and increased inspections. The railroad also announced in February that it would voluntarily purchase a fleet a of 5,000 strengthened tank cars to improve safety for hazardous materials shipments. The company said it hoped to accelerate the transition to a new generation of safer tank cars and give manufacturers a head start in designing them as federal officials consider changes to the current standards.

Not everyone in the oil sector is eager to transition to stronger tank cars. At the expo a day earlier, Kari Cutting, vice president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said it was “not proven that extra steel is going to prevent those breaches.”

Cutting also said the newer, stronger DOT-111 tank cars have 14 percent less capacity than older tank cars. Cutting said making those cars the standard will require hundreds more trains to make up the lost volume, actually increasing the risk of accidents.

Oil from North Dakota began being shipped by trains in 2008 when the state reached capacity for pipeline shipments. The state is now the nation’s No. 2 oil producer, behind Texas.

BNSF said it plans to invest $5 billion in its railroad this year, including $900 million to expand capacity where crude oil shipments are surging. Its 2014 spending plan is about $1 billion more than last year, a record, Rose said.

Much of the upgrades will be aimed at safety, he said.

“BNSF believes, at the end of the day, that every rail accident is preventable,” Rose said.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/05/21/5037936/bnsf-future-of-crude-by-rail-depends.html#storylink=cpy