Category: Railroads

A train derailment in rural eastern Montana spilled 35,000 gallons (132,489 liters) of crude oil and forced the evacuation of about 30 people, a U.S. official said on Friday in an email to state officials. About 20 cars on the Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF [BNISF.UL] crude oil train went off the rails east of Culbertson, Montana, on Thursday evening, officials said. There was no fire and no injuries were reported. A hazardous materials team from BNSF responded to the scene and contained the spilled oil with earthen dams, Michael Turnbull, an official with the U.S. Department of Transportation, said in an email to Montana officials that was released to the media. The spilled crude did not reach any waterways, the email said. Culbertson authorities temporarily evacuated about 30 people from an area a half-mile around the accident site, Turnbull’s email said. The spilled crude came from three breached tank cars […]

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U.S. railroads, Wall Street favorites for much of the past decade, are slumping into a bear market amid a three-way squeeze from plunging coal, crude-oil and grain shipments. An index of the four largest publicly traded U.S. carriers has dropped 20 percent from its peak in November, paced by Kansas City Southern, as the companies struggle to offset the loss of volumes. They haven’t tumbled this much since 2011. Those difficulties are likely to drag on, leading to the first annual industrywide earnings decline since 2009, as low natural gas prices sap coal demand, U.S. oil drilling slows and harvests return to normal after a record crop. That threatens to crimp a rally that made the group one of the top performers in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. “It’s going to be a tough year,” David Vernon, a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst, said in a telephone […]

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Oil companies have quietly agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars into a compensation fund for deaths and damage caused by a 2013 oil-train explosion in Quebec, though the energy industry has maintained it wasn’t responsible for the disaster. If U.S. and Canadian courts approve the fund, the companies would be shielded from several lawsuits claiming wrongful death and negligence in connection with the tragedy. Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., the small railroad hauling the crude oil, sought bankruptcy protection soon after the accident, in which an unattended train carrying oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale formation derailed and erupted into flames, killing 47. A trustee appointed by the bankruptcy court, who has approved the compensation fund, contended in court filings that oil producers were well aware the oil they were selling was dangerously volatile and failed to take action to make transporting it safer. Oil companies, […]

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ENLARGE Crude oil volume on U.S. railroads has been falling as the declining price of oil pushes companies to pull back production. Photo: Associated Press Railroads carried less crude oil in the first quarter as oil companies scaled back domestic shipments. The Association of American Railroads reported that crude oil carried by big U.S. railroads fell nearly 14% to 113,089 carloads compared with the fourth quarter of 2014. The railroads have been major beneficiaries of the U.S. energy boom, as oil companies shipped crude oil from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota to refineries on the coasts. But as the price of oil tumbled, shipments dipped. Crude-by-rail shipments are still a small part of railroads’ total revenues—only about 5% for the sector combined with drilling supplies—but the business has grown at a rapid rate in recent years. The tonnage of crude petroleum carried by U.S. railroads soared from about […]

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Crude by Rail Citing ‘customer complaints’, the BNSF railway has abandoned plans to buy 5,000 crude oil tankers. Typically, leasing companies or oil companies own the tank cars that move crude along the tracks and not the railroads themselves. But last year, BNSF requested proposals from railcar manufacturers to produce cars for them that were stronger and safer cars than the current DOT standards. The company had hoped that producing cars with thicker shells, reinforced ends and thermal blankets would reduce the risks of using trains to haul oil. Over the past two years, BNSF Railway has been involved in a number of incidents including a derailment and fiery crash that caused the evacuation of a small town in North Dakota just last week. The company confirmed that the eight cars that derailed were the unjacketed CPC-1232 models that the federal government would like phased out by 2020 due […]

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American Petroleum Institute challenges federal mandates for oil-trains in court, arguing timelines are arbitrary. File Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock. WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) — The American Petroleum Institute said it filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation challenging a federal timeline for oil-train safety. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx hosted Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt in Washington to announce new standards for "stronger, safer rail tank cars" carrying flammable liquids like crude oil through North America. By Jan. 1, 2018, the U.S. rule mandates the retrofit or removal from the rail fleet for oil transport of cars designated DOT-111. The Canadian government set a May 1, 2017, deadline. Brian Straessle, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, said the industry was frustrated with those timelines. "Improving on a 99.997 percent safety record requires data-driven efforts to prevent derailments with enhanced inspections and maintenance, upgrade the tank car […]

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