Tag Archives: Oregon

Crude By Rail, Funding for emergency response, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Schools, State regulation, Train speed, Washington State

Washington Governor Inslee says state will act on oil trains

Repost from The Olympian, Olympia Washington

Inslee says state will act on oil trains

By Andy Hobbs, November 21, 2014
Representatives from Washington and Oregon gather at Olympia City Hall for the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance summit on Friday, Nov. 21, 2014. TONY OVERMAN

The number of oil trains running across Washington is unacceptable, and the Legislature will consider bills in the upcoming session that mandate advance notification of oil shipments by rail as well as more funding for railroad crossings and emergency response training, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday.

King County Executive Dow Constantine added that oil companies are raking in profits while “the rest of us are picking up the costs.”

“Those who are profiting should shoulder the financial burden,” Constantine said.

They were speaking to the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance that met Friday at Olympia City Hall to address the surge of oil and coal trains passing through Washington.

The alliance is a coalition of local, state and tribal leaders from the Northwest who say the trains threaten the environment, economy and public safety.

As shipments of oil increase in the Puget Sound region, so does the likelihood for spills and accidents. The Department of Ecology reports that 19 fully loaded oil trains crisscross the state every week, with the number expected to reach 59 oil trains if current refinery proposals are approved. Each train hauls about 3 million gallons of crude oil in 100 tanker cars. Between 11 and 16 trains pass through rural and suburban areas of Thurston and Pierce counties every week, according to reports from BNSF Railway.

Participants in Friday’s meeting included elected officials from across the state along with Oregon and Canada.

“It is clear that we have to take significant action including being better prepared to handle an oil train explosion or large scale spill,” Inslee said.

Although the federal government is the main regulator of the railroads, Inslee said there are some actions the state can take now, such as lowering speed limits of the trains.

“We don’t want vehicles speeding through school zones, and we shouldn’t let oil trains speed through Washington cities,” said Inslee, noting that changes in state permits are at least a year away.

Friday’s meeting included a detailed report on the coal industry by Tom Sanzillo, finance director of the Institute for Energy Economic and Financial Analysis. Sanzillo encouraged states and cities to keep putting pressure on the coal industry, which has seen demand and prices decline worldwide in the past few years.

“The U.S. coal industry is shrinking,” said Sanzillo, adding that the industry needs “robust growth” to meet its potential and compete in the global market despite record demand for coal by nations like China. “Hooking your wagon to the coal industry is not a particularly promising outlook right now.”

At the local level, Olympia Mayor Stephen Buxbaum said the City Council will seek a resolution next week to add Olympia to the list of cities that oppose the increase in crude oil transport.

“We are at a crossroads,” Buxbaum said Friday. “We could see up to 60 trains a day and 4,000 supertankers in our waters.”

As for the coal issue, Buxbaum recently co-authored a guest column titled “You might be surprised by Puget Sound Energy’s coal power supply” that ran Nov. 19 in The Seattle Times. Also signing the article were Bainbridge Island Mayor Anne Blair and Mercer Island Mayor Bruce Bassett, and all three mayors’ respective city councils endorsed it.

The article urges Puget Sound Energy to take immediate action and plan for a “post-coal future.” About one-third of PSE’s power supply comes from coal that’s shipped from out of state, according to the article. The mayors also cite Gov. Inslee’s recent executive order to reduce pollution and transition away from coal power.

“The bottom line is that we don’t need coal,” the article states. “The potential is there for Washington to meet its energy needs with efficiency programs, wind, solar and other technologies. We just need to rise to the occasion.”

 

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Marine transport, Monterey Shale, Pacific Northwest

Reuters Exclusive: California getting more Bakken crude by barge than rail

Repost from Reuters
[Editor:  At the 9/11/14 Benicia Planning Commission meeting, John Hill, vice president and general manager of the Valero Benicia Refinery, stated that Bakken crude has been refined at Valero.  Commissioner Steve Young asked Hill to confirm his statement, which he did.  Young then asked the means of transport, and Hill replied “by barge.”  Our communities might well ask when, how much, and with what new volatile emissions output, etc….  – RS]

Exclusive: California getting more Bakken crude by barge than rail

By Rory Carroll, SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 23, 2014
A pumpjack brings oil to the surface in the Monterey Shale, California, April 29, 2013. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
A pumpjack brings oil to the surface in the Monterey Shale, California, April 29, 2013. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

(Reuters) – Shipments of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota to California by barge have quietly overtaken those by train for the first time, showing how the state’s isolated refiners are using any means necessary to tap into the nation’s shale oil boom.

While tough permitting rules and growing resistance by environmentalists have slowed efforts to build new rail terminals within California itself, a little-known barge port in Oregon has been steadily ramping up shipments to the state, a flow expected to accelerate next year.

From January through June, California received 940,500 barrels of the North Dakota crude oil from barges loaded at terminals in the Pacific Northwest, the highest rate ever, Gordon Schrempf, senior fuels analyst for the California Energy Commission, told Reuters.

Bakken crude transported to California on railcars, which has gained widespread attention after a series of fiery train derailments in North America, accounted for just 702,135 barrels over the same time period, according to published figures.

“We’re seeing marine transport of Bakken crude outpace rail for the first time,” Schrempf said. In 2013, rail shipments of 1.35 million barrels exceeded barge shipments of 1.33 million barrels. The year before, almost no crude arrived by barge.

Bakken shipments by barge and rail may only comprise a tiny portion of the crude California imports, at about 5,200 and 4,000 barrels per day respectively, with Alaska supplying over 20 times as much crude.

But companies, including refiner Tesoro Corp and logistics company NuStar Energy LP, have plans to significantly expand that volume with new terminals along the Pacific Northwest that would unload trains from North Dakota and pump the oil onto tankers.

They would help make California a major destination for Bakken oil, a trend that has drawn objections from environmental groups who have been seeking to stem the tide, often by blocking local permits to built oil-train offloading terminals.

“Bringing it in by barge gets you around cumbersome permitting and the growing citizen opposition to crude-by-rail,” said Lorne Stockman, research director of Oil Change International, a research and advocacy organization working on energy, climate and environmental issues.

To be sure, their objections may differ. The principle concern over transporting Bakken by rail is the risk that a derailment could cause a deadly explosion similar to the one in Lac Megantic, Quebec, last year that killed 47 people.

There is no suggestion that waterborne oil transportation poses similar explosive risks, although the environmental impact of a barge spill could be much greater.

“The barges are designed to carry the grade of oil that the Bakken is,” said Ted Mar, prevention branch chief for the state’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response and a former member of the Coast Guard.

That is small comfort to environmentalists, who oppose all forms of oil production, in particular shale crudes like Bakken, extracted through hydraulic fracking they fear contributes to global warming and poses a potential risk to water supplies.

“Our end goal is to leave these more dangerous, unconventional fuels in the ground,” said Jess Dervin-Ackerman, conservation manager for the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club.

SMALLER BUT CLOSER

With state production declining since the mid-80s, California’s refiners have increasingly relied on deliveries of crude by oceangoing tankers carrying 500,000 barrels or more from places like Alaska, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador and Iraq, which supplied two-thirds of their needs last year.

The refiners have been scrambling for several years to get better access to cheaper domestic shale oil by any means necessary, replacing costlier imports. But with the big shale fields to the east of the Rocky Mountains and a lack of major pipelines, it has not been easy.

The articulated tug barges (ATBs) now arriving are tiny by comparison to the tankers, carrying as little as 50,000 barrels.

Such shipments cost more than bringing Bakken directly to California by rail, but easily plug into existing port and terminal infrastructure – avoiding the need for new permitting that can take years.

While many are working to build out their own rail facilities, a handful of major rail-to-barge terminals along the Pacific Northwest coast that would ship over 500,000 bpd of Bakken crude have been in the works for several years. But most are incomplete, and several face delays.

One of the few exceptions is an idled ethanol terminal and processing plant in Clatskanie, Oregon, run by Global Partners LP. The facility, on a small canal that feeds into the Columbia River, began quietly transshipping oil from trains to barges in 2012 and is now receiving so-called “unit trains”, mile-long trains that only carry crude oil.

“Unit train volume into our Clatskanie terminal is up, and interest in the facility from prospective customers is at an all-time high,” Global Partners Chief Executive Eric Slifka said in August.

Global Partners did not respond to a request for comment.

Later that month, the firm received a new air permit from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality that will allow it to ship as much as 1.84 billion gallons of volatile liquids, or some 120,000 bpd. It did not specify crude or ethanol.

Much of those shipments moved north to refineries in Washington, including BP’s Cherry Point in Puget Sound, and Phillips 66’s Ferndale facility. But both those plants are expanding their own facilities to bring more Bakken in by rail, likely curbing some demand for barges.

Top oil barge operator Kirby Corp, which runs vessels out of Clatskanie, is currently building two larger 185,000-barrel barges to deploy on the coast next autumn.

Environmentalists say they are monitoring the rise in Bakken-by-barge deliveries.

“This won’t pull our focus away from crude by rail, but rather expand the lens with which we look at dangers of Bakken entering our communities,” said the Sierra Club’s Dervin-Ackerman.

(Reporting by Rory Carroll, editing by Jonathan Leff and Marguerita Choy)
Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Rail inspection, Union Pacific Railroad

Union Pacific boosts rail inspections in high-hazard mountain passes

Repost from The Sacramento Bee
[Editor: See video of reporter Tony Bizjak’s ride on the inspection car here.  – RS]

Union Pacific boosts rail inspections in high-hazard mountain passes

By Tony Bizjak, 10/19/2014
Mike Stoddard oversees the operation of Union Pacific Railroad’s EC-4 as it makes its way out of the Roseville yard on Oct. 6 in Roseville. The EC-4 is a 96-ton, 82-foot-long rolling track inspection car which travels 800-1500 miles a week making sure that heavily used railroad tracks are in good working order.
Mike Stoddard oversees the operation of Union Pacific Railroad’s EC-4 as it makes its way out of the Roseville yard on Oct. 6 in Roseville. The EC-4 is a 96-ton, 82-foot-long rolling track inspection car which travels 800-1500 miles a week making sure that heavily used railroad tracks are in good working order. Randy Pench

Faced with public concern about the risks of crude oil shipments, the Union Pacific railroad last month boosted its rail inspection program on mountain passes in California and the West, dispatching high-tech vehicles with lasers to check tracks for imperfections.

UP officials say they have leased two rail inspection vehicles, called geometry cars, doubling the number of computer-based safety cars in use on the company’s tracks. The move comes amid mounting public concern about hazardous-material shipments, including a growing quantity of highly flammable crude oil from North Dakota being shipped to West Coast refineries.

The inspection cars will supplement similar geometry cars UP owns that it uses to inspect hundreds of miles of tracks daily on the company’s main lines west of the Mississippi River. Running at regular train speeds, the inspection vehicles can detect tiny deviations and wear on rail lines that could cause a derailment if allowed to grow, UP officials said.

The new cars will patrol the main mountain routes into the state, UP officials said. Northern California sites will include Donner Pass, the Feather River Canyon and grades outside Dunsmuir. The state has designated all those areas high hazards for derailments.

In Southern California, the inspection vehicles will patrol UP’s looping line over the Tehachapi Mountains, as well as the line on the Cuesta grade in San Luis Obispo County. The trains also will check mountain rails in Washington, Oregon, Utah and Nevada.

“We’re ensuring we keep crude oil trains on the track,” said David Wickersham, UP’s chief maintenance engineer in the West. “We are going to time it so we are hitting California every three months.”

State rail safety chief Paul King of the California Public Utilities Commission applauded the move. “It’s easy to maintain a straight (flat) railroad, but it’s not as easy to maintain a curved rail like you find in the mountains,” King said.

Grady Cothen, a retired Federal Railroad Administration safety official, said the type of high-tech inspections cars UP is using have become a must for major railroad companies. With more freight moving through limited rail corridors, especially mountains, the financial and political implications of a major derailment that causes damage are huge for railroads.

Bakken Crude, Derailment, Disclosure of tank car contents, Explosion, Hazardous cargo transparency, Hazmat notification, Pacific Northwest

Report shows increase in Central Oregon oil trains

Repost from The Bulletin (Serving Central Oregon)
[Editor: Significant quote: “The company’s (BNSF) most recent report shows a change in data format.  In the first two reports, BNSF reported the actual number of trains passing through Central Oregon during a specific week. While the new report still focuses on a specific week, the company is now giving a estimated number of oil trains.”  – RS]

Report shows increase in Central Oregon oil trains

BNSF: 100-car Bakken trains passing through Bend

By Dylan J. Darling / The Bulletin / Oct 14, 2014 

While a state-released report by BNSF Railway about the number of large Bakken crude oil trains passing through Central Oregon shows a potential notable increase, a company spokesman said Monday the actual number of trains is less than detailed in the report.

Following relatively new federal rules about reporting oil trains, BNSF Railway Co . sent a Sept. 30 report to the Oregon Office of the State Fire Marshal showing that an estimated zero to three oil trains carrying more than 1 million gallons of crude oil each pass through Deschutes and Jefferson counties per week.

A report earlier this year showed one such train passed through Central Oregon weekly.

“The real number is one every 12 days,” said Gus Melonas, spokesman for BNSF. That works out to three or four of the trains per month going through Redmond, Bend and beyond. He said the trains are carrying the oil to refineries in California.

The trains going through Central Oregon and the Columbia River carry crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota, oil that has proved to be more volatile than other crude oil. Bakken oil train derailments have led to dramatic explosions in Canada and North Dakota. Last May, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency order requiring railroads to provide information to state emergency responders about large train shipments of Bakken oil.

The BNSF rail route through the Gorge, bringing crude oil to refineries near Portland and in Washington, sees two to three oil trains per day, Melonas said. He said the route through Bend is “not a high volume line.”

The reporting rules pertain to trains carrying 1 million or more gallons of crude oil, the equivalent of about a 35-car train.

“If they have a train carrying less than a million crude, they don’t have to report it at all,” Rich Hoover, community liaison for the Office of State Fire Marshal, said Monday.

Melonas declined to give details on whether there are trains carrying less than a million gallons of crude oil rolling through Central Oregon, citing security and customer information concerns. If there were, he said, the oil cars would be hauled with cars carrying other commodities.

“We don’t put out specifics,” he said.

Each time a railroad company has an increase or decrease of 25 percent or more in the number of trains passing through an area, the rules require it to send a report to the state. Since May, BNSF has sent three reports to Oregon.

The company’s most recent report shows a change in data format. In the first two reports, BNSF reported the actual number of trains passing through Central Oregon during a specific week. While the new report still focuses on a specific week, the company is now giving a estimated number of oil trains.

Hoover said the state goes by what the company states in its reports , which the Office of State Fire Marshal posts to its website.

“What you see and read is exactly how much we know,” he said.

Melonas described the trains traveling through the region as “unit trains,” meaning they haul one commodity, and each train has about 100 tanker cars. The trains hold 70,000 to 80,000 barrels of crude oil each, or about 2.94 million to 3.36 million gallons of crude oil.

Concerned about the possible catastrophic results of an oil train derailment, Sally Russell, Bend city councilor, said it is a good thing the railroad is having to supply information to the state.

“Knowledge and the ability to response and react are critical,” she said.

If the number of large oil trains passing through Central Oregon is going up, it means the potential for a situation necessitating an emergency response is increasing, Bill Boos, deputy chief of fire operations for the Bend Fire Department, said Monday.

He said he’d like to have information on oil trains, large and small, rolling through Bend.

“It would be nice to know if there were smaller quantities coming through and if that was increasing,” he said.

While concerned about the dangers of train derailment and fire in towns, Michael Lang, conservation director for Portland-based Friends of the Columbia Gorge, also worries about the risks of an oil spill into the Deschutes River. The rail line through Central Oregon follows the river north of Bend. Along with towns, the large oil trains pass through a section of designated Wild and Scenic River.

“It’s not safe,” Lang said. “It endangers our communities, it endangers our environment. … And we are really concerned about it.”