Category: Railroads

New standards for crude oil transportation by rule go into force in North Dakota. File Photo by UPI/Shutterstock/Steven Frame. BISMARCK, N.D., April 1 (UPI) — BNSF Railway aims to eliminate older tank cars from crude oil service and take additional steps to improve safety in North Dakota, the state’s governor said. Starting Wednesday, the rail company will require trains hauling crude oil reduce their speeds in communities with more than 100,000 residents and work to remove all rail cars designated DOT-111 from service within a year and phase in newer CPC 1232 models. "Railroad operations, equipment and maintenance are critical elements in our overall goal to improve rail safety, and I commend BNSF for taking these significant steps," North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple said in a statement. "At the same time, we must move forward on other important aspects of rail safety including the need for new federal tank […]

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WILLISTON, N.D. (Reuters) – North Dakota will from Wednesday require the more-than 1.2 million barrels of crude extracted each day from the state’s Bakken shale formation be run through machines that remove volatile gases linked to recent crude-by-rail disasters. The controversial step is designed to abrogate the damage North Dakota crude oil – 70 percent of which is transported via rail – can cause during derailments. In the absence of concrete regulations from the U.S. Department of Transportation, North Dakota’s new rules become the de facto national standard on the treatment of crude before tankcar loading. "North Dakota’s crude oil conditioning order is based on sound science and represents an important step in the ongoing work to ensure that oil-by-rail transportation is as safe as possible," said Governor Jack Dalrymple, who has also been pushing federal regulators for stricter rail car designs. The new regulations require every single barrel […]

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Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration based on data from the Surface Transportation Board and other information Note: Crude-by-rail movements greater than 1,000 barrels per day are represented on the map; short-distance movements between rail yards within a region are excluded. PADD denotes Petroleum Administration for Defense District. For the first time, EIA is providing monthly data on rail movements of crude oil, which have significantly increased over the past five years. The new data on crude-by-rail (CBR) movements are integrated with EIA’s existing monthly petroleum supply statistics, which already include movements by pipeline, tanker, and barge. The new monthly time series of crude oil rail movements includes shipments to and from Canada and dramatically reduces the absolute level of unaccounted for volumes in EIA’s monthly balances for each region. EIA is initiating the new series with monthly data from January 2010 through the current reporting month, January 2015. CBR […]

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Crude by Rail 2015 | Click to Enlarge The Energy Information Administration (EIA) released the latest data today for crude by rail  (CBR) across the country that shows a significant increase over the last five years. Total CBR movement in the United States and between the United States and Canada was more than 1 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2014, up from 55,000 bbl/d in 2010. The regional distribution of these movements has also changed over this period. Crude by rail continues to be highly controversial as people question the safety for individuals and the environment.  With production at an all time high, the CBR numbers will continue to escalate as producers must find a way to move their product. The EIA developed a new tracking system that will gather data across all regions of the country and parts of Canada from January 2010 through the current month. CBR activity is tracked between pairs […]

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(Bloomberg) — BNSF Railway Co., the largest hauler of crude by rail, moved ahead of U.S. peers in the push for safety by reducing oil-carrying train speeds beyond an agreement last year between regulators and the railroads. BNSF’s oil trains will go 35 miles per hour (56 kilometers per hour) in areas with at least 100,000 residents, a 30 percent reduction in speed in some cases, the company said Monday. Union Pacific Corp., the largest U.S. railroad by revenue, said it will study BNSF’s actions, while CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp., the two largest railroads in the eastern U.S., said they aren’t taking similar steps. “Norfolk Southern remains committed to improving the safety of crude oil transportation by rail,” Rick Harris, a company spokesman, said. “We are not planning additional changes at this time.” BNSF, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., in its effort to improve safety […]

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The US Energy Information Administration is providing monthly data of crude oil shipments by rail for the first time. The new crude-by-rail movements will be integrated with its existing monthly petroleum supply statistics, which already include crude movements by pipeline, tanker, and barge, EIA said. The crude-by-rail data provide a clearer picture of an oil transportation mode which has rapidly grown recently, and is of great interest to policymakers, the public, and the rail and oil industries, EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski said. “EIA expects that the new data it has developed using information provided by the US Surface Transportation Board (STB), along with data from other third-party sources and our own survey data, will provide key insights into oil-by-rail movements, including shipments to and from Canada,” he said. “We welcome the cooperation of the STB as well as Canada’s National Energy Board in making these data accessible.” EIA will […]

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WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday urged the White House to implement national oil train safety standards and to do more to control the volatility of crude moving in those shipments. The Obama administration is expected to demand that future oil train tankers are toughened with added steel and have advanced braking systems to prevent derailments from becoming a disaster like the 2013 Lac-Megantic tragedy, when a runaway oil train killed 47 people in the Canadian town. But the proposal is expected to do nothing to control the dangers of that cargo even though federal officials have warned that crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken energy patch could be unduly volatile and explosion-prone. Senator Maria Cantwell introduced legislation that would force regulators to control oil train volatility. "This bill is showing our impatience with the fact that (the White House plan) doesn’t include volatility and […]

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American Petroleum Institute calls for a holistic approach to address the safe transport of crude oil by rail. Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock Suzanne Emmerling, a spokesperson for the department, said in a statement the administration was frustrated with statements made by the American Petroleum Institute on efforts to improve rail safety . "It’s disappointing that API continues to look for reasons not to engage in improving safety," she said in a statement Tuesday. "While the rail industry has taken many steps to improve safety, we will always demand more and expect more from them. We continue to hope the energy industry will join in those efforts." API, which represents the business interests of the oil and gas sector, said its review of a federal report on rail found kinetic energy built up during a derailment may play a greater role than cargo in any detonations. "The Department of Energy […]

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