Tag Archives: Oil Industry

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Oil Industry, Oil stabilization, Rail industry, Tank car design, Tar sands crude, Valero Benicia Refinery

EDITORIAL: Four explosive derailments in a month – how much longer?

By Roger Straw, Benicia Independent Editor, March 6, 2015

Yesterday afternoon, a multitude of news flashes broke out telling of yet another oil train derailment with fiery explosions, this time right alongside the Mississippi River outside Galena, Illinois.  The oil and rail industries escaped with another close call – no one was injured or killed this time and – so far – no reports of crude oil in the waters of the mighty Mississip.

The Galena accident is the fourth major derailment with hazmat fire in recent weeks!  (Dubuque, Iowa [2/4]; Gogama, Ontario [2/14]; Mount Carbon, West Virginia [2/16]; and Galena, Illinois [3/5]).  (LATER: now there have been five: a second derailment and explosion in  Gogama Ontario, [on 3/7], just 23 miles from the 2/14 fire.  – Editor)

There WILL be more.  The question everyone is asking: whose lives are at risk right now in schools and hospitals, commercial centers, apartment complexes and homes in the mile-wide evacuation zones along the rails that crisscross the country?  If Valero’s Benicia refinery is granted a permit and hires Union Pacific to run oil trains over the Sierra and across the state of California to Benicia, whose cozy little town uprail from here will be host to the next “Big One?”  Or if we’re “lucky,” what California wilderness will be the next to endure the foul spills and the consuming fires of an explosive oil train crash?

And who will pay for lives and property lost, for infrastructure repairs and the massive cleanup?

Oddly perhaps, my thoughts turned gently this morning to those refinery executives who have invested so much time and energy in planning for and implementing the rail transport of North American oil – Bakken crude and tar-sands (diluted bitumen).  I’m trying to imagine what it must be like for these decent career employees to eagerly wake up to a good cup of coffee and the morning news … only to be jolted once again as their tv shows video of yet another horrific oil train explosion.  It must be disheartening.  How, with every news outlet all across the U.S. paying attention to the need for safer tank cars with stabilized contents (and more) – how difficult for oil industry execs to begin to realize the folly of their plans.  It must be like learning there’s no Santa Claus.  Or like a nation having to decide to back out of a Vietnam war.  It can’t be easy.  But I dare to hope that some executive somewhere is going to make a decision soon: this has to stop.  He or she can swallow that cup of coffee, take a deep breath, and lead the way.  No more.  Not here.  Not me.  Not our company.

I wonder, too, about those who govern.  Why should our officials continue to allow the use of those old failing rails, aging bridges and dangerous tank cars to carry volatile chemicals today?  How much longer until our local, state and federal leaders call an end to this dangerous and polluting practice?  When will they stop trying to fix the system with minor safety upgrades and call a moratorium until the whole thing is worked out to protect the public’s health and safety?

What started out here in Benicia in early 2013 as a small, alert group of us who were concerned for the earth; an effort to take no part locally in the stripping of lands and environments in Alberta Canada and Montana and the Dakotas; and an understanding of the facts indicating the certain increase in toxic emissions affecting our air and water if Valero would move to crude by rail … these early concerns of ours were “blown away” (as it were), by the explosions, by the frightening and repeated demonstrations of the incredible risks of transporting volatile North American crude oil by rail and by the lack of adequate safeguards of a rail industry that cannot be controlled locally or regionally.

Our federal regulators MUST stand up to the industries and put an immediate stop to these bomb trains.  Until new regulations are in place to stabilize the oil before it is loaded, and until a totally new design for safer tank cars is approved and manufactured, and until the infrastructure that carries those new cars is upgraded, we should not have to live with the deadly risk.

Our resources would be better spent during a moratorium on crude by rail funding a massive increase in investment in clean energy.  Someone needs to put serious effort into planning a 5 or 10 year phase-out of fossil fuels.  Ok, 20.  It would be cataclysmic to just STOP the flow of oil and gasoline.  Even so, I think we’d survive it.  Someone should think it through carefully, and lay it out in steps that lead surely and safely away from crude oil … by rail or by any other means.

– Benicia Independent Editor, Roger Straw

California Regulation, Fracking, Oil Industry, Water quality

Hundreds of illicit oil wastewater pits found in Kern County

Repost from The Los Angeles Times
Editor: See also LA Times follow-up stories: 2/27/15, Who’s behind the chemical-laden water pits in Kern County? and 2/28/15 Jerry Brown must enforce California’s environmental laws.   

Hundreds of illicit oil wastewater pits found in Kern County

By Julie Cart,   2/26/15 10:10PM
Oil wells
Pits containing production water from oil wells in Kern County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Water officials in Kern County discovered that oil producers have been dumping chemical-laden wastewater into hundreds of unlined pits that are operating without proper permits.

Inspections completed this week by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board revealed the existence of more than 300 previously unidentified waste sites. The water board’s review found that more than one-third of the region’s active disposal pits are operating without permission.

The pits raise new water quality concerns in a region where agricultural fields sit side by side with oil fields and where California’s ongoing drought has made protecting groundwater supplies paramount.

Clay Rodgers, assistant executive officer of the water board’s Fresno office, called the unregulated pits a “significant problem” and said the agency expects to issue as many as 200 enforcement orders.

State regulators face federal scrutiny for what critics say has been decades of lax oversight of the oil and gas industry and fracking operations in particular. The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources has admitted that for years it allowed companies to inject fracking wastewater into protected groundwater aquifers, a problem they attributed to a history of chaotic record-keeping.

“The state doesn’t seem to be willing to put the protection of groundwater and water quality ahead of the oil industry being able to do business as usual,” said Andrew Grinberg of the group Clean Water Action.

The pits — long, shallow troughs gouged out of dirt — hold water that is produced from fracking and other oil drilling operations. The water forced out of the ground during oil operations is heavily saline and often contains benzene and other naturally occurring but toxic compounds.

Regional water officials said they believe that none of the pits in the county have linings that would prevent chemicals from seeping into groundwater beneath them. Some of the pits also lack netting or covers to protect migrating birds or other wildlife.

Currently, linings for pits are not required, though officials said they will consider requiring them in the future. Covers are mandated in some instances.

The pits are a common site on the west side of Bakersfield’s oil patch. In some cases, waste facilities contain 40 or more pits, arranged in neat rows. Kern County accounts for at least 80% of California’s oil production.

The facilities are close to county roads but partially hidden behind earthen berms. At one pit this week, waves of heat rose from newly dumped water, and an acrid, petroleum smell hung in the air.

Rodgers said Thursday that the agency’s review found 933 pits, or sumps, in Kern County. Of those, 578 are active and 355 are not currently used.

Of the active pits, 370 have permits to operate and 208 do not. All of the pits have now been inspected, he said.

The possible existence of hundreds of unpermitted pits came to light when regional water officials compared their list of pit operators to a list compiled by the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. The oil regulator’s list contained at least 300 more waste pits than water officials had permitted, Rodgers said.

His staff began inspecting the wastewater sites in April. Initial testing of water wells has not revealed any tainted water, he said.

The pits are an inexpensive disposal method for an enormous volume of water that is forced out of the ground during drilling or other operations, such as fracking. Rodgers said that just one field, the McKittrick Oil Field, produces 110,000 barrels of wastewater a day. According to figures from 2013, oil operations in Kern County produce 80 billion gallons of such wastewater — an amount that if clean would supply nearly a half-million households for a year.

More than 2,000 pits have been dredged over decades of oil operations in Kern County, according to water board records. Oil field companies have not always properly disposed of water, Rodgers said. As recently as the 1980s, it was customary to dump wastewater into drainage canals that line the San Joaquin Valley’s agricultural fields.

But using unlined pits to dispose of wastewater is becoming less common. Some states ban the practice, and many in the oil and gas industry do not consider it effective.

The water board’s long-term plan to address the problem includes requiring remediation of some abandoned pits so that contaminants left behind don’t pollute the air, Rodgers said.

In pits located near clean water sources, Rodgers said, operators will be required to install monitor wells to test water quality. The companies will pay for the testing and provide the results to water officials.

The water board will publish a series of general orders that he said will more tightly control the operation of wastewater pits.

“Our goal is to protect water quality,” Rodgers said. “Our goal is not to shut anybody down, but by the same token, they do not own the waters beneath them. Those waters are for the public good.”

Crude By Rail, Health and safety impacts, Health impacts, Oil Industry, Oil producers, Rail industry, Risk Assessment

Safety warning from British Health & Safety Executive

Repost from Health & Safety Executive (HSE), Great Britain
[Editor: CONTEXT – I received this in an  email from Fred Millar,  independent consultant and expert on chemical safety and railroad transportation.  Fred’s email comment puts the British commentary in a “North American oil-train” perspective:  “Impact of falling oil prices may be quite small re volumes of Crude By Rail shipments, some informed observers have noted.  But this UK HSE message highlights a likely, less visible but no less ominous impact: dangerous lowering of safety standards in the oil industry [and by implication in the newly important “pipeline on rails” railroads carrying crude oil and other hazmat].  If this impact had not been seen previously at significant levels by safety agencies, there would be no need for such blunt alarums, of course.”  – RS]

No Compromise

By Judith Hackitt, HSE Chair, 2/6/15

The impacts of falling oil prices is having a wide ranging effect in the UK – from the lower cost of filling up the car to people’s livelihoods being under threat.

It is inevitable companies seek to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and the decisions they are being forced to make are tough ones. It’s actually a stress test of leadership and senior management.

Part of that test is whether company decision makers have all the relevant information to make informed decisions.

How can they?

At the very least they have to make assumptions about what the future will look like. In this case, how long oil prices will stay at these levels? What decisions are competitor companies and industries taking? After all, they need to be making the right decisions for the company in the short term and for the mid to long term.

We’ve been here before, of course, in the 1990s when oil prices dropped and assumptions were made about the long term life of North Sea assets that proved to be wide of the mark. So this is a time when corporate memory really counts.

On that occasion the assumption was made that North Sea production would be wound down in the medium term and assets could afford to be neglected because they would soon be out of service. As prices rose again, the assets were called upon to continue to produce and many are now operating well beyond their original life expectancy. Doing that has required huge effort by the North Sea Oil and Gas industry to bring those neglected assets back up to the required standard.

Those who have led this effort to improve asset integrity deserve to be praised, but their voices need to continue to be heard as we go through this next difficult phase for the industry.

Cutting costs where there seems to be least tangible day-to-day effect is obviously tempting but leaders and senior managers need to pass the stress test on knowing where health and safety – and particularly process safety and asset integrity – sits in this mix.

Asset integrity must not suffer from short term expediency over where the axe falls. Leadership is critical to avoid wrong assumptions being made about the lifespan of assets, assumptions we know from previous experience can take years to reverse.

Current news headlines may be disconcerting, but I want all industries dealing with process safety to avoid inadvertently writing tomorrow’s headlines today.

Safety must not be compromised, even in tough times.

Bakken Crude, Burn victims, Health impacts, Oil Industry, Oil producers

Bakken burn victims: Twin Cities hospitals are front line

Repost from The Star Tribune, Minneapolis MN

Twin Cities hospitals are front line in treating Bakken burn victims

There are no specialty centers near Bakken fields.

By Maya Rao, February 14, 2015
Kyle, 27, recovers at Regions Hospital after a fire on an oil site where he was working in the Bakken badly burned his legs. Photo: Maya Rao, Star Tribune

Flames seared the pants off Kyle’s legs as he raced across a bed of ruddy red rocks, screaming for help.

A pipe on a machine processing oil at high heat had burst, soaking him in methanol and sparking a fire.

“You could just feel it cooking my legs,” he said. “It almost sounded like chicken frying in an oiler.”

Hours later, Kyle woke up at Regions Hospital in St. Paul last month, after a 600-mile plane ride from the oil fields of North Dakota. His legs were burned so deeply that the bottom layer of skin would never grow back. It was the worst pain he’d ever felt.

Burn injuries among North Dakota workers have surged to more than 3,100 over the past five years, as the once nearly barren prairies have become the epicenter of a massive oil-drilling boom. Despite the flammability of Bakken crude and the danger of oil-rig work, North Dakota has no burn centers. The Twin Cities is the closest place to go for patients like Kyle, 27, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that his last name not be used.

While other kinds of injuries may be more common, oil field burns are among the most painful and costly to treat. An oil field worker’s treatment at a burn unit can cost $1 million.

“The burns from the oil fields can be pretty dramatic,” said Bill Mohr, a surgeon at Regions.

Just 17 percent of North Dakota residents can be transported by air or ground to a burn center within two hours — fewer than every state but Alaska and Montana. The extra time it takes to move patients poses a medical challenge, since care administered in the first day factors into burn patients’ long-term recovery.

Mohr said oil field burns are three or four times bigger than those of the average patient and that Bakken burn victims who come in to Regions are more likely to need ventilators.

One died after arriving with 98 percent of his body burned. Some needed limbs amputated and had burns that bore down into the bone. Many never returned to the oil fields.

Shortage of burn doctors

Hospitals nationwide have been closing burn units and are grappling with a shortage of burn doctors. States with low populations, like the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, have not been able to justify opening such expensive, specialized facilities.

When a truck carrying crude crashes and explodes, or an oil rig blows out, burn victims are initially taken to a hospital in the Bakken. The staff assesses whether the burns are severe enough to fly them to burn centers in the Twin Cities, Salt Lake City or Denver.

Gary Ramage, medical director at McKenzie County Healthcare Systems in North Dakota, said he sends patients out of state if the burns affect their respiratory system, face or hands — the most difficult areas to treat — and at least 10 percent of their body.

Oilfield workers are brought to Regions almost once a month, including a patient last month who had been working on an oil heater near Mandaree, N.D., that ignited. He died.

Another dozen Bakken burn victims have been treated at the Hennepin County Medical Center in the last three or so years, according to its burn unit director, Ryan Fey.

HCMC paid closer attention to oil field burns after a train carrying Bakken crude derailed in Casselton, N.D., 13 months ago. While no one was injured, members of the medical staff are examining how they would address an oil train accident that caused mass burn injuries.

“That’s become more and more of an issue because we have all these Bakken oil trains that come rolling through just one after another,” Fey said.

Bakken hospitals are looking at how to improve burn care. Two nurses at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Dickinson, N.D., recently traveled to a Galveston, Texas, hospital to learn burn management techniques. And doctors at Regions regularly travel to the Bakken to talk to medical staff about treating burns in the early stages.

Serious oil field burns destroy what’s known as the dermis, or the thicker, second layer of skin that contains blood vessels and sweat glands. Burn doctors excise the damaged skin to prevent infections. Then they apply bioengineered tissue made of cow collagen and shark cartilage to function as the new dermis. They harvest the top layer of skin from a healthy part of the body and graft it over the artificial skin tissue.

Even after recovering from those surgeries, patients must still do months or years of physical therapy to fix the loss of flexibility in their skin. And then there is the emotional recovery: Severe burn patients can face post-traumatic stress disorder on par with soldiers.

Lighting a cigar

Advances in burn treatment mean that some oil workers who would have died a decade or two ago now have a chance.

One is Casey Malmquist. The head of a Whitefish, Mont., construction company, Malmquist came to the Bakken to build housing for oil workers. In July 2013, he stepped onto the deck of one of the newly finished homes for Halliburton employees and leaned over to light a cigar.

There was a whoosh and then an explosion. He flew off the deck. His shirt, he recalled, lit up like a lantern.

The cause appeared to be leaking propane gas that had not been properly odorized to alert him that he was near a flammable substance. He fell into a coma and woke up three weeks later at Regions, 68 percent of his body burned. The Bemidji native, then 56, seemed destined to die.

But after three months at Regions and many surgeries, Malmquist returned to Montana. He still goes to physical therapy daily and hasn’t returned to some of the activities he once loved, like hockey, because his skin is fragile and managing his body temperature is difficult.

He said living in his new body “is like wearing a wet suit that’s five times too small, and there’s ground glass between you and the wet suit.”

In November, Minneapolis attorney Fred Pritzker sued Horizontal Resources on Malmquist’s behalf, claiming the company was negligent in not odorizing the propane.

Nightmares

Kyle moved to Williston, N.D., in 2011 with his pregnant wife, Shawna, after he was laid off as a plumber in Helena, Mont.

He found work as a maintenance roustabout, checking oil tanks, pumping units, well heads and other equipment.

Last month, Kyle and a co-worker went to an oil pad just south of Ross, N.D., and noticed a unit by the oil treater was frozen. Oil treaters separate oil from water and gas before it moves to storage tanks. After they worked to thaw it with water from a hot oil truck, Kyle said he tried to fix a misplaced valve.

A pipe blew out and soaked him with gas. It was so uncomfortable that he took off the flame-retardant pants over his jeans just before a fire ignited.

Several men who saw Kyle ablaze tackled him and blasted him with a fire extinguisher, ordering him to roll on the ground.

As the ambulance took him to a hospital in Stanley to be stabilized, Kyle said he thought, “How am I going to support my family now?”

He woke up in Regions with a breathing tube, his legs stapled and wrapped in casts.

Kyle can walk; he strode down the hall to pick up Forrest Gump from the hospital’s movie selection after his wife joked that she’d make him watch Titanic. But it hurts.

As OSHA investigates, Kyle said he doesn’t blame his company and considers it a freak accident. He hopes to get his old job back one day.

Memories of the fire shake him. “I keep having nightmares about it,” Kyle said. “I’ve been trying to take a nap all day and … I jump and think that I’m back in the fire.”