Rail shipments of crude and refined products fell last week to the lowest level since October 2013 after a derailment shut a track in Illinois for four days. The U.S. transported 12,724 carloads of petroleum in the week of March 8-14, according to data released Wednesday by the Association of American Railroads. That’s down 10 percent from the previous week and the lowest level for March since 2012. Petroleum shipments by rail have fallen since last summer as plummeting crude prices have caused the biggest slowdown of oil drilling on record. BNSF Railway Co. shut its mainline near the town of Galena, Illinois, from March 5-9 after a derailment, causing delays and reroutings. “Commodity price pressure is slowing and will continue to slow the cadence of drilling activity, and that’s one of the drivers of crude by rail being lower,” Vincent Piazza, senior energy analyst at Bloomberg […]