Tag Archives: Pipeline transport

Oil spill, Pipeline rupture, Pipeline transport, Truck transport, Water contamination

Exxon seeks to use trucks to haul oil after pipeline break

Repost from KSBW News, Santa Barbara CA

Exxon seeks to use trucks to haul oil after pipeline break

Associated Press, Jun 05, 2015 1:06 PM PDT
Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, KSBW

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. —An oil company wants to use tanker trucks to haul oil through Santa Barbara County while a pipeline that spilled crude into the Pacific Ocean last month is out of commission.

Exxon Mobil officials have told county officials they want to use a fleet of 5,000-gallon tankers for the job, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

Kevin Drude, head of the county’s energy division, said the company proposes to have trucks use Highway 101 daily, around the clock at a rate of eight trucks an hour to get the oil moving to refineries.

Exxon Mobil normally moves crude from three offshore platforms through more than 10 miles of pipeline owned by Plains All American Pipeline.

The movement has been stopped since the pipe ruptured on May 19 and released up to 101,000 gallons west of Santa Barbara. Thousands of gallons flowed down a culvert under Highway 101 and into the ocean at Refugio State Beach.

The trucking proposal is seen as risky by environmentalists.

“We don’t want another disaster,” said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center.

Glenn Russell, county planning and development director, said his staff will review the proposal and make a decision by Monday. He said he expects a similar request from another oil company, Freeport-McMoRan, which has also been affected by the pipeline shutdown.

Cleanup and investigations into corrosion that resulted in the failure of the pipe have been underway since the spill and there’s no timetable for putting the pipeline back in service.

Exxon Mobil would use the trucks until the pipeline is operational again, said company spokesman Richard Keil.

“We need to move our product by truck to serve the energy needs of Californians and the demands of the refineries we supply,” he said.

Exxon reduced oil production from 30,000 to 8,500 barrels a day and is storing the crude in tanks at Las Flores Canyon near the coast highway.

Russell said the company now has two weeks’ worth of storage space left.

Bakken Crude, Pipeline transport

MN approves Bakken oil pipeline to Lake Superior

Repost from The Capital Journal, Pierre SD

MN approves Bakken oil pipeline to Lake Superior

By Capital Staff and Wire Reports, June 5, 2015 5:08 pm

ST. PAUL — The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has approved a certificate of need for the proposed Sandpiper pipeline route through northern Minnesota as it goes from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields to Superior, Wisconsin.

While the PUC agreed 5-0 Friday that the $2.6 billion, 610-mile pipeline – about 300 miles across Minnesota –  is necessary, they didn’t foreclose the possibility of more changes on its proposed path, the Associated Press reported.

The PUC said it still might reroute Enbridge’s proposed route away from environmentally sensitive lakes, streams and wetlands in northern Minnesota. Enbridge Energy will still have to go through a lengthy review of its proposed route and a proposed alternative.

Enbridge says it would like to have it operating in 2017.

The proposed route goes from the oil field near Tioga, N.D., near Williston, to Superior, Wis., where ocean-going vessels can dock just below Duluth on Lake Superior. In North Dakota it follows fairly closely to U.S. Highway 2.

The Minnesota portion would go 75 miles from Grand Forks, N.D., east to the main Enbridge junction at Clearbrook, Minn., with 24-inch pipe with a capacity of 225,000 barrels per day.

Then for a 225-mile leg,  it jogs south to Park Rapids, Minn. – which is on a line east of Fargo –  and then east to Superior with a 30-inch pipeline with a capacity of 375,000 barrels per day, according to Enbridge.

At a capacity of 375,000 barrels a day across Minnesota, the Sandpiper would carry the equivalent of about 525 rail tanker cars, each holding 714 barrels, or about five trains of crude oil, every day.

Enbridge says Sandpiper is needed to move the growing supply of North Dakota crude safely and efficiently to market.

But environmentalists and tribal groups say the risk of leaks is too high.

North Dakota regulators have already approved Sandpiper.

North Dakota produces about 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, about 13 percent of U.S. production; roughly two-thirds of it leaves the state by train.

Recent explosive derailments of oil trains have informed the debate over building new pipelines.

Crude By Rail, Marine transport, Pipeline transport, Tar sands crude

Oil, gas, coal industries want Washington, British Columbia as permanent home ports

Repost from SeattlePI
[Editor: Note that at the time of this posting, the link to SeattlePI is ok, but it carries an advertisement at top promoting Energy East Pipeline –  a project to bring nasty Western Canadian tar sands oil to Eastern Canada.  Supposedly all the “facts” and “benefits” of this tar sands disaster.  Ironic, eh?  – RS]

Oil, gas, coal industries want Washington, British Columbia as permanent home ports

By Joel Connelly, June 4, 2015

Shell’s exploration fleet is due to depart Seattle soon for the Arctic, but other energy industries are planning their own home ports up and down the West Coast, from the Columbia River to the Salish Sea to British Columbia’s North Coast.

The public’s attention will wane at its peril.  Public understanding of the gains and pains of Big Oil and Big Coal’s plans for the Northwest is strongly advised.

Spill response boats work to contain fuel leaking from the bulk carrier cargo ship Marathassa, anchored on Burrard Inlet, Thursday, April 9, 2015, in Vancouver, British Columbia. The City of Vancouver warned that the fuel is toxic and should not be touched. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck)

The waters of Puget Sound, Georgia Strait and the Inland Passage are fast becoming a chosen path for shipment of coal, liquid natural gas, and — if many in Congress have their way — oil to China and other fast-developing Asian markets.

The drilling rigs Polar Pioneer and Noble Discoverer will almost certainly be in Alaskan waters when legal and administrative challenges to Shell Oil’s Seattle home port are heard in July.

In recent months, the resistance to Shell has overshadowed the proposed oil train terminus in Vancouver, Washington, the coal port and refinery proposed for Longview, the growing number of oil trains through Seattle, and the enormous pipeline terminus and oil export port proposed just east of Vancouver, B.C.

The invasion of the energy industry has drawn sporadic public attention. A crowd of 2,300 showed up for a Seattle meeting to scope out the Army Corps of Engineers’ environmental studies of the proposed Gateway Pacific coal export terminal north of Bellingham.

Ignored south of the border, more than 100 demonstrators were arrested last November at a park on Burnaby Mountain, just east of Vancouver, B.C. They were protesting sample drilling by a Houston company that wants to make Burnaby the terminus of a pipeline carrying Alberta tar sands oil.

The proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline, beginning in Edmonton, has at least 890,000 barrels a day a higher capacity than the vastly more-publicized Keystone XL project in the Midwest.

A sight that won't be stopped by sit-ins and City Council resolutions: A coal train passes an oil train after tanker cars derailed in Magnolia this morning. Oil and coal could become the Northwest's "supreme shipping commodities" crowding our trade dependent economy..

The oil would not stay in British Columbia.  Thirty-four tankers a month would carry it through the international waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Haro Strait, the boundary between the U.S. San Juan Islands and the Canadian Gulf Islands.

Governments, on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, do not inspire public confidence.

The U.S. Department of Transportation, in recent safety rules on oil trains, proposes to allow three years — THREE YEARS — for explosion-prone, 1964-vintage DOT-111 tanker cars to finally be off America’s railroad tracks.

The USDOT is “laser focused” on safety, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.  Still, the DOT has sided with the railroads and rebuffed requests by first responders for full information on cargoes being carried from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota through Puget Sound cities.

“Because of the detailed and sensitive nature of the safety and security analysis information, the federal government requires that the information be treated as Sensitive Security information that cannot be publicly disclosed,” Foxx told Cantwell.

Nor do the USDOT rules require removal of potentially explosive gases from tank cars carrying shipments of oil.

The situation is even more alarming in Canada. The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to turn the Great White North into a global petro power.  And that means bringing Alberta oil to tidewater for export.

Oil tanker cars derailed beneath the Magnolia Bridge in July of 2014.

The National Energy Board of Canada (NEB) has approved (with conditions) an oil pipeline that would carry Alberta tar sands crude to an oil port at Kitimat, at the head of the long, treacherous Douglas Channel in northern British Columbia.

The NEB is now considering the 890,000 barrels-a-day, $5.4 billion (Canadian) Kinder Morgan pipeline.  Vancouver and Burnaby are trying to get full information on environmental consequences. A major spill in Burrard Inlet could cost Vancouver as much as $1.25 billion.  However, the British Columbia government has barely intervened with the project.

While watching hockey’s Stanley Cup playoffs, American viewers have been exposed to pro-pipeline propaganda on Canadian TV.  The government promises “world class” marine safety.  A stud-muffin Kinder Morgan employee talks about how much he loves the out-of-doors.

Don’t believe Canada’s claims for a New York minute.

While pushing an oil port, the Harper government has shut down the Kitsilano Coast Guard Base in Vancouver and is in the process of closing the Coal Harbor marine traffic and communications center.  The oil would be routed to Burnaby, while Coast Guard operations are being moved to Victoria.

The vast Alberta oil stands project, along with oil development in North Dakota, is outstripping the capacity of North America's pipelines. Hence, oil is increasingly being moved by rail. A disaster in Quebec raises questions for the Northwest. (Getty Images)

The British Columbia government has its sights set on something else — development of huge liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals on the coast. The gas would be exported to China.

An Indian band near Prince Rupert recently rejected a $1 billion, long-term deal to roll over and allow an LNG terminal.

The B.C. government is more pliable.  It is pledging to freeze in place environmental and safety regulations for the duration of the LNG terminals’ operation.  It’s forging ahead with the big, nature-wrecking Site C hydro project on the Peace River to supply electricity to the LNG industry.

So far, the most sustained resistance has come from Native American and Aboriginal First Nations tribes.

The tribes have managed to unite across the border, understanding that disruption, oil spills and damage to natural resources will be felt on BOTH sides of the border.

The Swinomish tribe is challenging Anacortes-bound oil trains, which cross its reservation, in federal courts. The Lummi Indians have steadfastly resisted Gateway Pacific.

Newborn J51 with her mother J19 off San Juan Island. Photo: Dave Ellifrit, The Center for Whale Research.

Up north, the Tsleil Wauth First Nation, with land on Burrard Inlet, fielded a study by experts.  It found there is a 37 percent chance of a spill of 100,000 barrels or more, which could kill between 100,000 and 500,000 sea and shorebirds.

The basic point for residents of this much-envied corner of the Earth:

Full, accurate information on the real and possible consequences of major energy projects is not going to come from government.

Given the scope of the projects, two words of wisdom come immediately to mind: Question authority.

Crude Oil, Fish and wildlife, Pipeline infrastructure, Pipeline inspection, Pipeline rupture, Pipeline transport, Violations of law

Pipeline that spilled oil on California coast badly corroded

Repost from SFGate

Pipeline that spilled oil on California coast badly corroded

By Michael R. Blood and Brian Melley, Associated Press, Wednesday, June 3, 2015 10:50 pm
FILE - This Friday, May 22, 2015 file photo shows signscmarking the beach closed to fishing and harvesting while cleanup crews in the background shovel and rake contaminated sand into bags at El Capitan State Beach, north of Goleta, Calif. Two weeks after an underground pipeline broke on May 19, 2015, crews continued to clean up oil-covered beaches along California’ Central Coast. Photo: Michael A. Mariant, AP / FR96689 AP
FILE – This Friday, May 22, 2015 file photo shows signs marking the beach closed to fishing and harvesting while cleanup crews in the background shovel and rake contaminated sand into bags at El Capitan State Beach, north of Goleta, California two weeks after an underground pipeline broke on May 19, 2015. Crews continued to clean up oil-covered beaches along California’ Central Coast. Photo: Michael A. Mariant, AP

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A pipeline rupture that spilled an estimated 101,000 gallons of crude oil near Santa Barbara last month occurred along a badly corroded section that had worn away to a fraction of an inch in thickness, federal regulators disclosed Wednesday.

The preliminary findings released by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration point to a possible cause of the May 19 spill that blackened popular beaches and created a 9-mile slick in the Pacific Ocean.

The agency said investigators found corrosion at the break site had degraded the pipe wall thickness to 1/16 of an inch, and that there was a 6-inch opening near the bottom of the pipe. Additionally, the report noted that the area that failed was close to three repairs made because of corrosion found in 2012 inspections.

The findings indicate 82 percent of the metal pipe wall had worn away.

“There is pipe that can survive 80 percent wall loss,” said Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts Inc., which investigates pipeline incidents. “When you’re over 80 percent, there isn’t room for error at that level.”

The morning of the spill, operators in the company’s Houston control center detected mechanical issues and shut down pumps on the line. The pumps were restarted about 20 minutes later and then failed, prompting another shutdown of the line.

Restarting the pumps could have led to a rupture, or a break in the line could have caused the pumps to fail, but Kuprewicz cautioned it’s still too soon to determine what caused the failure.

In either case, a hole that size would have leaked at a high rate — even with the pumps off — and may not have been quickly detected by remote operators.

The agency documents said findings by metallurgists who examined the pipe wall thickness at the break site conflicted with the results of inspections conducted May 5 for operator Plains All American Pipeline. Those inspections pinpointed a 45 percent loss of wall thickness in the area of the pipe break, meaning they concluded the pipe was in far better condition.

Government inspectors “noted general external corrosion of the pipe body during field examination of the failed pipe segment,” the report said.

Investigators found “this thinning of the pipe wall is greater than the 45 percent metal loss which was indicated” by the recent Plains All American inspections.

The agency ordered the company to conduct additional research and possible repairs on the line, which has been shut down indefinitely.

Plains All American said in a regulatory filing that there is no timeline to restart the line, which runs along the coast north of Santa Barbara. A company spokeswoman said there’s no estimate yet of the cost of cleanup, which involves nearly 1,200 people.

The agency also ordered restrictions on a second stretch of pipeline, which the company had shut down May 19, restarted, then shut down again on Saturday.

That second line had similar insulation and welds to the line that spilled oil last month. It cannot be started until the company completes a series of steps, including testing.

The company said in a statement that it is committed to working with federal investigators “to understand the differences between these preliminary findings, to determine why the corrosion developed and to determine the cause of the incident.”

Plains said it won’t know the cause until the investigation, including the metallurgical analysis, is concluded.

The company has come under fire from California’s U.S. senators, who issued a statement last week calling the response to the spill insufficient and demanding the pipeline company explain what it did, and when, after firefighters discovered the leak from the company’s underground 24-inch pipe.

A commercial fisherman sued Plains in federal court Monday, alleging the environmental disaster would cause decades of harm to the shore. He is seeking class-action status and damages for business owners who have lost money because of the spill.

As of Tuesday, 36 sea lions, 9 dolphins and 87 birds in the area have died, officials said. Another 32 sea lions, 6 elephant seals and 58 birds were rescued and were being treated.

Popular state beaches and campgrounds polluted by the spill are closed until at least June 18.

Plains All American and its subsidiaries operate 17,800 miles of crude oil and natural gas pipelines across the country, according to federal regulators

The spill is also being investigated by federal, state and local prosecutors for possible violations of law.