Category Archives: Rail industry

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, Oil Industry, Rail industry, Tank car design, Tank car retrofit

Federal Railroad Admin: oil industry must do more to boost train safety

Repost from Reuters

Oil industry must join U.S. railroads to boost train safety – regulator

By Patrick Rucker, Mar 13, 2015 6:06pm EDT

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) – Rail operators are going to great lengths to prevent oil train derailments but the energy sector must do more to prevent accidents from becoming fiery disasters, the leading U.S. rail regulator said on Friday.

Oil train tankers have jumped the tracks in a string of mishaps in recent months that resulted in explosions and fires.

Several of those shipments originated from North Dakota’s Bakken energy fields. Officials have warned that fuel from the region is particularly light and volatile.

Sarah Feinberg, acting head of the Federal Railroad Administration, said the energy industry must do more to control the volatility of its cargo.

“(We) are running out of things that we can put on the railroads to do,” she said. “There have to be other industries that have skin in the game.”

A national safety plan for oil trains, due to be finalized in May, would require trains to have toughened tankers, advanced braking and other safety improvements.

The plan, however, would do nothing to mute the dangers of the fuel itself.

As officials try to prevent mishaps, they will also highlight the energy companies that supplied crude oil involved in accidents, Feinberg said.

Officials want to identify publicly “the owner of the product when we talk about these derailments,” she said.

The American Petroleum Institute said it hoped to work with the rail industry and other stakeholders to prevent mishap.

“Our safety goal, along with the railroads, is zero incidents,” said Brian Straessle, a spokesman for the trade group.

While U.S. officials have warned for more than 12 months that Bakken fuel can be volatile, the verdict is mixed on whether that contributes to the intensity of accidents.

In September, the FRA determined that Bakken crude oil may be no more explosion-prone than other fuels carried by rail.

Ethanol, a corn-based gasoline additive, “poses a similar, if not greater, risk as (Bakken) crude oil when released from a tank car failing catastrophically and resulting in a large fireball type fire,” according to a study from the agency.

On Friday, the FRA said that about 6,000 tankers had a top valve that allowed small amounts of oil to escape. The agency said it ordered the fitting to be replaced and said it would work with industry to identify and replace defective parts more quickly.

That defect was not believed to have played a role in any mishaps, the FRA said.

(Reporting by Patrick Rucker; Editing by Dan Grebler, Bernard Orr)
Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail industry, Rail industry lobby, Tank car design, Train braking systems

As Galena IL Tank Cars Burned, Industry Met at White House to Weaken Safety Standards

Repost from Reuters

U.S. rail industry pushes White House to ease oil train safety rules

By Valerie Volcovici & Patrick Rucker, Mar 10, 2015 2:24pm EDT

(Reuters) – The U.S. rail industry is pushing the White House to drop a requirement that oil trains adopt an advanced braking system, a cornerstone of a national safety plan that will soon govern shipments of crude oil across the country.

Representatives of large rail operators met with White House officials last week to argue against the need for electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, or ECP brakes, saying they “would not have significant safety benefits” and “would be extremely costly,” according to a handout from the meeting.

ECP brakes trigger all axles simultaneously rather than one at a time in current design.

More than a dozen industry representatives made their case at the Washington meeting last Friday, a day after a crude oil train derailed in Illinois.

Reuters reported last month that the national oil train safety plan now under review at the White House Office of Management and Budget would require the advanced braking.

The Transportation Department has concluded that ECP braking would deliver meaningful safety improvements but the industry officials argued that the department estimates “grossly overstate benefits and understate costs.”

The industry claims fitting rail stock with ECP brakes would not prevent accidents, but merely limit the number of cars that derail in an accident.

Adopting the new technology would lead to more frequent service problems and mechanical delays, industry officials said.

The oil train safety plan being considered by the White House would also demand tougher tank cars and other safety steps that the government estimates would cost at least $3 billion over the next 20 years.

Oil and rail executives contend that much higher costs would needlessly hinder a sector that has helped push a national energy renaissance.

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

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.