Category Archives: Crude By Rail

Bakken Crude, Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Insurance Industry, Tank car retrofit, Volatile gases

Rightwing Canadian Thinktank: Bakken crude is safe, consumers will pay for unneeded regulation

Repost from The Waterloo Record, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada [Editor: It is instructive – although distressing – to take note of current talking points of the right-wing Canadian Fraser Institute.  – RS]

Consumers are the losers in rush to regulate oil by rail

Opinion, by Kenneth P. Green

In the wake of the 2013 Lac-Mégantic oil-by-rail disaster, when a train carrying crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken field exploded in Quebec, some people began to characterize Bakken crude oil as “uniquely flammable,” implying that new rail car standards might be required to move the material.Indeed, the supposed uniquely flammable characteristics of Bakken crude was ultimately cited as a central reason for the recent Department of Transportation proposal to tighten railcar standards in the U.S., which Canada will almost certainly have to match given the integrated nature of the North American rail system.

There’s no question we must carefully consider the safety of how we move oil, whether by pipeline, rail, roadway or barge. But we should make those judgments based on data, not on emotion or hunches. We also need to consider the costs that such decisions might impose on consumers of oil and derivative products and services. And a recent study of Bakken crude commissioned by the North Dakota Petroleum Council reveals that Bakken crude is just regular crude oil that can be safely transported in existing rail cars.

The study sampled Bakken crude at 15 well sites across the Bakken formation, and at seven rail terminals, testing the oil for a broad range of physical characteristics.

To summarize the findings in plain language: Bakken crude is comparable to light sweet crude oil when it comes to its relative weight as compared to water, and it has very low levels of sulphur and corrosive acidic components. The vapour pressure of Bakken oil (a measure of how much outward pressure that Bakken oil would exert on a container such as a rail car) was found to be within a few pounds per square inch of other light sweet crude oils.

The flash point of Bakken oil (that’s the lowest temperature at which the oil could vaporize enough to ignite in air) was found to be below 73 degrees Fahrenheit, similar to other light sweet crudes. The initial boiling point (that’s the temperature at which bubbles form in a heated liquid) was found to be between 95 F and 100 F, which is also in the normal range for light sweet crude oil; and Bakken crude didn’t have unusually high concentrations of very light (and particularly flammable) hydrocarbons (known as “light ends”).

And, contrary to suggestions that there might have been additions to Bakken crude that would make it uniquely flammable, the study found no evidence that Bakken crude was “spiked” with more flammable natural gas liquids prior to being shipped by rail.

Finally, the report notes that: “… Bakken crude oil meets all specifications for transport using existing DOT-111 tank cars.” This conclusion is consistent with the recent American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers Bakken Report, which stated: “Bakken crude oil does not pose risks significantly different from other crude oils or other flammable liquids authorized for rail transport. While Bakken and other crude oils have been classified as flammable liquids, the report noted Bakken crude poses a lower risk than other flammable liquids authorized for transport by rail in the same specification tank cars.”

The “uniquely flammable” narrative has driven the ongoing process to develop new rail-safety regulations, and new standards have been proposed in the U.S.

Retrofitting existing rail cars to meet the new standards is estimated to cost between $30,000 US and $40,000 US, and industry estimates suggest there are about 78,000 cars that need to be retrofit, at a total cost of $2.3 billion US to $3.1 billion US. Complying with the new regulations will increase costs of oil transport and, thus, the cost of oil, gasoline, derivative products and services provided through the use of those products for everyday consumers. It will also slow the trend of the shift to rail, at least in the short term, until retrofits can be worked through the system.

Some have suggested that the new standards might engender savings through reduced insurance rates, though this seems unlikely. In the wake of the Lac-Mégantic derailment, the United States Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration effectively concluded that current insurance coverage levels were not simply low, they were drastically too low to cover potential costs of an accident. If anything, there will be still higher insurance rates issued to cover the more expensive cars, further reducing the economic viability of moving large quantities of oil by rail.

Adding to the complexity, there may not be sufficient resources in the rail-insurance sector to step up to the plate and offer more comprehensive coverage.

We may or may not be safer as a result of the proposed tank-car regulations, but it may be that the “uniquely flammable” narrative of Bakken crude has led us to focus on the wrong problem by tackling the material aspect of things before we’ve tackled the insurance side of the equation. Most likely, an integrated process tying both factors together would have yielded a superior outcome.

Kenneth P. Green is the senior director of natural resource studies at the Fraser Institute, an independent, right-of-centre think-tank.
Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Hazmat notification

Merced Sun-Star editorial: Tell us when dangerous oil cars are rolling

Repost from The Merced Sun-Star

Our View: Tell us when dangerous oil cars are rolling

Editorial, August 15, 2014

Railroad tracks run up and down the valley like a spine, carrying everything from cans to cars, telephone poles to toothpicks. Many communities see 30, 40 or even 50 trains a day.  Some of those cars carry dangerous materials. Compressed gas and caustic chemicals move in black, cylindrical tank cars adorned with two markings – the red diamond with a flame and “DOT 111” stenciled on each car.

Not yet, but soon some of those rail cars will be hauling another dangerous material – crude oil extracted from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota. While it is no more dangerous than many other chemicals, there’s likely to be a lot more of it on the rails that bisect our communities. The railroads and state must make certain that we are aware of these movements and have a plan for dealing with any emergency.

California’s Office of Emergency Services estimates shipments of Bakken crude will increase 25-fold by 2016 as 150 million barrels are sent to refineries in the Bay Area, Southern California and soon to two being readied in Bakersfield. That could mean thousands of tank cars a year moving through Modesto, Livingston, Merced and beyond. Mother Jones magazine calls it a “virtual pipeline.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Bakken crude contains higher amounts of butane, ethane and propane than other crude oils, making it too volatile for actual pipelines.

In July, 2013, a train carrying Bakken crude derailed and exploded in the small town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people. Less dramatic derailments, some with fires, have occurred in North Dakota, Virginia and Illinois. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports 108 crude spills last year.

“When you look at the lines of travel from Canada and North Dakota, you figure if they’re headed for the Bay Area or to Bakersfield, the odds are that you’re going to see shipments going down the Valley,” said Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, who represents north Sacramento. So, he authored Assembly Bill 380, which would require the railroads to notify area first-responders whenever these trains are passing through.

Others are concerned, too. In July, the DOT issued proposed rules for safe transport, including increased cargo sampling, better route analysis, a 40 mph speed limit on trains labeled “high-hazard flammable,” and switching to newer, safer DOT 111 cars after Oct. 1, 2015. The new cars have double steel walls, better closures and heavier carriages. Currently, they make up about a third of the nation’s tanker fleet. California’s Office of Emergency Services has issued 12 recommendations, ranging from allowing better data collection to phasing out those old tank cars to better training for first-responders.

The railroads are already doing many of these things. Since the mid-1990s, BNSF has offered – at no charge – training for handling spilled hazardous materials and more extreme emergencies. But not enough local agencies have found the time to take the classes. A BNSF spokeswoman said the railroad would even come to town to conduct the training.

In May, the USDOT issued an emergency order in May requiring all carriers to inform first responders about crude oil moving through their towns and for the immediate development of plans to handle spills. Unfortunately, it contains a discomforting criteria: the order applies only to trains carrying 1 million gallons of Bakken crude, or roughly 35 tank cars. And to reach USDOT’s definition of a “high-hazard flammable train,” also requiring a warning, a train must have 20 tank cars.

Some perspective. In Virginia, one one tank car carrying Bakken crude exploded and flew an estimated 5,500 feet; a photograph of another explosion showed a fireball rising 700 feet from a single car. Our first responders ought to know when even one car carrying such material is coming through town. And that information must be shared beyond communities directly on rail lines because even our largest communities count on neighboring agencies to provide assistance during emergencies. When such cargo is moving, every emergency responder in the vicinity should be on alert.

Currently, the railroads share that information only if a local agency asks for it. That’s not good enough. Dickinson’s bill would make notification available on a real-time basis, without asking. But his bill mirrors federal orders on the size of the train; a dangerous loophole.

The incredible expansion of America’s oil resources is creating many positives – from more jobs to less dependence on foreign oil. But it’s happening so fast that we’re making up the safety aspects as we roll along. Federal rules don’t go nearly far enough to protect public safety in this new world.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Lake Champlain, Massive increase in crude-by-rail

The risk to Lake Champlain

Repost from The Burlington Free Press
[Editor: What do pristine California waters and Lake Champlain (in upstate New York) have in common?  Would you believe oil trains?  – RS]

The risk to Lake Champlain

 Mike Winslow, August 15, 2014

The sound of trains clacking along the rails that abut Lake Champlain has become more common with the dramatic increase in freight traffic attributed to fossil fuel extraction.

Each week approximately 60 million gallons of oil travel along the lake carried by 20 trains with up to 100 cars each. Nearly half of these shipments carry the volatile Bakken crude.

The U.S. meets 66 percent of its crude oil demand from production in North America with tremendous growth in outputs from Canada and the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota. In October 2013, U.S. crude production exceeded imports for the first time since February 1995.

Oil produced from the Bakken fields is light. That means it flows easily, but it also means it is more volatile and flammable.

As a result, the potential property damage and loss of life associated with rail accidents involving Bakken oil is higher than oil from other sources.

In January, two federal agencies issued a safety alert warning of these risks.

The alert was triggered by a series of devastating accidents. Federal Railroad Administration statistics suggest that on average, at least one car slips off the tracks every day. There have been six major derailments since the beginning of 2013.

The most infamous occurred July 5, 2013, in Lac Megantic, Quebéc. An improperly secured train rolled on its own, and 63 cars derailed near the center of town, leading to multiple explosions and fires, evacuation of 2,000 people and 47 deaths.

There have been unsettling precedents:

• October 19, 2013: 13 tank cars derailed in Alberta leading to evacuation of 100 residents. Three cars carrying propane burned following an explosion.

• November 8, 2013: 30 cars derailed in a wetland near Aliceville, Alabama and about a dozen were decimated by fire.

• December 30, 2013: two trains, one carrying grain and one oil, collided in Casselton, North Dakota. Twenty of the oil train cars derailed and exploded leading to evacuation of 1,400 people.

• January 7, 2014: 17 cars derailed in New Brunswick and five exploded leading to evacuation of 45 people.

• January 20, 2014: Seven cars derailed on a bridge over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, though no oil leaked.

• More recently, 15-17 cars derailed in Lynchburg, Va., on April 30. Three fell into the James River and one burst into flames. There were no injuries, but 300-350 people had to be evacuated, and oil leaked into the James River. The state estimated 20,000 to 25,000 gallons escaped during the wreck.

Our region is no stranger to train derailments. In 2007, a northbound Vermont Railways freight train derailed in Middlebury, spilling gasoline into Otter Creek and leading to the evacuation of 30 streets in the vicinity.

Trains have also derailed along the Lake Champlain route. In 2007, 12 cars derailed near Route 22 in Essex, N.Y., the same stretch of tracks now carrying volatile oil.

Concern over the state of North American freight rail safety predates the increase in oil shipments.

In 2006 the Toronto Star ran a five-part series on rail safety. The newspaper noted, “Canadian freight trains are running off the rails in near record numbers and spilling toxic fluids at an alarming rate, but only a tiny fraction of the accidents are ever investigated.”

The greatly increased traffic in oil has further strained railroad infrastructure. According to an article in Pacific Standard Magazine, 85 percent of the 92,000 tank cars that haul flammable liquids around the nation are standard issue DOT-111s. They have been referred to as “Pepsi cans on wheels.”

These cars are built to carry liquids but lack specialized safety features found in pressurized tanks used for hauling explosive liquids. The industry has agreed to include additional safety features in any new cars put on the tracks, but since rail cars have an economic life of 30-40 years, conversion to the newer cars has been slow.

One relatively new risk is the predominance of “unit trains.” These are long series of cars all shipped from the same originating point to the same destination.

Often the cars will all carry the same product. It used to be that oil cars were mixed in with other freight cars bound for different locations. Unit trains are a greater risk in part because safety standards are based on the carrying capacity of a single car and don’t account for the greater volumes that unit trains can transport.

The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency charged with investigating accidents, has called on the Federal Railroad Administration to change this standard.

Recently, an oil company submitted plans to build an oil heating facility in Albany, N.Y. The facility would be used to heat oil shipped via rail. The oil would then be transferred to barges and floated to refineries.

If permitted, a heating facility would draw increased transport of Canadian tar sands, which needs to be diluted or heated for loading or unloading, through the Lake Champlain region.

In contrast to Bakken field oil, tar sands oil is heavy. Cleanup of tar sands oil following accidents is extremely challenging. The oil sinks rather than floating, making containment difficult.

When a pipeline carrying tar sands oil broke near Kalamazoo, Mich., 850,000 gallons spilled. The resulting cleanup cost more than $1 billion (yes, $1 billion), and costs were “substantially higher than the average cost of cleaning up a similar amount of conventional oil,” according to a report prepared by the Congressional Research Service.

In November 2013, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation declared the proposed facility would have no significant environmental impacts.

However, public outrage led the department to reconsider that declaration, expand the public comment period and seek additional information from the proponents.

Still, the additional requested information touches only the tip of the facility’s impacts on the region. The facility should undergo a full environmental impact review that includes potential impacts on freight shipping throughout the region including along Lake Champlain.

In July, the Department of Transportation proposed new rules on rail safety. They include a phase-out of DOT-111s during the next few years, tightened speed limits, improved brakes and permanent requirements for railroads to share data with state emergency managers.

The federal department is accepting comments on the proposed rules until Sept. 30 and hopes to finalize them by the end of the year.

It’s a step in the right direction, but way too slow on getting rid of these risky cars. Delays in updating standards puts people, communities, Lake Champlain and other waterways at risk. The administration needs to act before another disaster like what occurred in Lac Megantic occurs here or elsewhere.

Train whistles echoing off the waters of the lake should elicit wistful thoughts of faraway places, not shudders of dread.

Mike Winslow is the staff scientist at Burlington-based nonprofit Lake Champlain Committee.

Rail concerns

A forum on rail transportation of crude oil along the western shore of Lake Champlain is planned for 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. on Aug. 24 at Plattsburgh City Hall.

For more information, contact the Lake Champlain Committee at lcc@lakechamplaincommittee.org or (802) 658-1414.
Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, Tank car design, Train braking systems

Canada may require new electronically controlled brakes (and other measures) for oil trains … by 2020

Repost from the Globe and Mail, Ottawa, Canada
[Editor: Significant quote: “Electronically controlled air brakes are favoured by some rail-safety advocates because they allow an engineer to apply the brakes on all of a train’s cars at the same time – regardless of how close they are to the locomotive.  In contrast, traditional air brakes rely on a signal that begins from the locomotive and moves car by car toward the back of the train. On longer unit trains such as those typically used to haul crude oil, rail cars near the back of the train won’t receive the signal as quickly, increasing the risk of a derailment when the brakes are applied suddenly.”  – RS]

Putting the brakes on train derailment

By Kim Mackrael, Aug. 15 2014

The federal government is mulling a plan to require new electronically controlled air brakes for rail cars that haul dangerous goods such as crude oil and ethanol after a series of explosive oil-train derailments in Canada and the United States.

A consultation document sent to the railway transportation industry last month laid out Transport Canada’s proposal for a new class of tank car, including the new air brake system and full head shields to prevent punctures. Older-model DOT-111 tank cars have been heavily criticized as prone to puncture and corrosion.

Electronically controlled air brakes are favoured by some rail-safety advocates because they allow an engineer to apply the brakes on all of a train’s cars at the same time – regardless of how close they are to the locomotive.

In contrast, traditional air brakes rely on a signal that begins from the locomotive and moves car by car toward the back of the train. On longer unit trains such as those typically used to haul crude oil, rail cars near the back of the train won’t receive the signal as quickly, increasing the risk of a derailment when the brakes are applied suddenly.

Don Ross, who led the Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into last year’s rail disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Que., said the agency generally supports the use of the electronically controlled brakes because they can improve rail safety, particularly on longer trains. “It’s encouraging, now, that they’ve got out for discussion a very good standard,” Mr. Ross said in a recent interview.

“We would be very happy to see the industry adopt that.”

Transport Minister Lisa Raitt told The Globe and Mail on Friday that she had already begun consultations on the matter, but has so far heard that the industry does not believe electronically controlled air brakes are necessary. “The ones that I’ve been speaking to say it’s too difficult to implement in the North American market,” Ms. Raitt said, adding, “That’s the consultation so far, but we’re still gathering information right now.”

One concern with electronically controlled brakes is that the system would need to be installed on all of a train’s cars for it to function properly, a factor that would limit railways’ flexibility in assembling longer or mixed trains.

In addition to the new air brake system, the proposed new standard includes full head shields to prevent puncture, improved top-fitting protection for the pressure release valve, mandatory thermal jackets to prevent overheating, and new standards for bottom outlet valves to prevent leaks during an accident.

The standard goes beyond requirements announced in April for a three-year phaseout or retrofit of pre-2011 tank cars used to haul crude oil. Those rules included half-head shields, top-fitting protection and thicker steel.

The new proposal would give industry until May, 2020, to start using the next-generation cars to move the most dangerous flammable liquids, classified as Packing Group 1. New or retrofitted cars would be required for moderately dangerous flammable liquids by May, 2022, and for all flammable liquids by May, 2025.

A spokesperson for Canadian Pacific said on Friday that the company is evaluating Transport Canada’s proposal, but did not comment on any specific aspect of the proposed change. Canadian National said it is reviewing the proposal and would provide comments to the regulator as part of the consultation process.

Last month, U.S. regulators issued three possible requirements for next-generation DOT-111 tank cars.

The toughest standards proposed by the U.S. are similar to the Transport Canada proposal and include electronically controlled air brakes.