Category: Railroads

ENLARGE Burning oil-tank cars from a BNSF train that derailed at Heimdal, N.D., lay askew along the railroad tracks on May 6. Photo: Associated Press Environmental groups are the latest challengers to push back against the new crude-by-rail rules with filings in federal court that argue the new regulations are too weak. Earthjustice filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco on Thursday on behalf of seven nonprofits, arguing the timeline to phase out dangerous older tank cars is too long and that the standard for upgrades is too weak. The Earthjustice filing also seeks lower speed limits for trains carrying hazardous flammable liquids and requirements that railroads provide more information about the routing of dangerous goods to the public. “Explosive oil trains present real and imminent danger, and protecting the public and waterways requires an aggressive regulatory response,” said Marc […]

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In the latest legal challenge to the federal government’s new crude-by-rail rules, two Illinois municipalities on Wednesday filed a petition asking a Chicago-based federal appeals court to review the rules, saying regulators didn’t go far enough. The village of Barrington and the city of Aurora jointly filed the petition, asking for the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to set aside and remand parts of the rules. The municipalities are specifically challenging an exemption that allows some trains to continue using dangerous older tank cars, as well as a phaseout schedule for certain tank cars hauling flammable liquids that they deem to be “unreasonably long.” They also want the rules to require railroads to provide electronic documentation of the contents of the train to emergency workers when an accident occurs. The Transportation Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Federal Railroad Administration doesn’t comment on pending […]

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WASHINGTON A U.S. oil industry group has launched a legal challenge to federal rules aimed at tightening safety standards in oil-by-train transport, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. The American Petroleum Institute on Monday petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to block important provisions of the rules presented earlier this month by Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, the newspaper said. The United States and Canada announced on May 1 long-awaited safety rules for trains carrying oil, as regulators seek to reduce risks after a series of explosive accidents that accompanied a surge in crude-by-rail shipments. The rules call for a rapid phase-out of older tank cars considered unsafe during derailments, and are more aggressive than even some of the toughest proposals yet put forward. The petition filed on Monday seeks to bar a rule requiring older tank cars to be fitted with new safety […]

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WILLISTON, N.D. Crude oil aboard a BNSF train that derailed in North Dakota on Wednesday caught fire even though it was less flammable than required by a state law that took effect last month. Test results sent to federal investigators and seen by Reuters show the state’s new rule may not be stringent enough to significantly reduce the risks of fireballs after derailments of trains carrying crude. In this crash, the crude on board contained about 20 percent fewer volatile gases than regulations mandate. The oil, transported in tank cars owned by Hess Corp, had a vapor pressure of 10.83 psi, according to test results. This pressure is less than the new threshold of 13.7 psi. State regulators have used vapor pressure as a proxy for measuring the amount of flammable gases known as light-ends that are present in crude. Samples of the crude oil involved in this latest […]

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Rail traffic set to resume through small North Dakota town where cars carrying Bakken oil derailed. File Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock. HEIMDAL, N.D., May 8 (UPI) — Rail traffic is expected to continue through a small North Dakota town at the center of latest oil train debate before the weekend, rail company BSNF said. Six of the 107 cars carrying Bakken crude oil through Heimdal, N.D. caught fire after derailing Wednesday. BNSF said most of the oil still in the derailed cars was removed and rail traffic should continue through the area before the weekend. "BNSF crews are currently working to clean up the area, remove the derailed cars, and repair the damaged track at that location," the company said in a late Thursday statement. Fires associated with the derailment were extinguished Thursday afternoon. The 40 or so residents of Heimdal who were evacuated after the incident were cleared […]

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AP Photo BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — An oil train derailed and caught fire early Wednesday in a rural area of central North Dakota, prompting the evacuation of a nearby town where about 20 people live. No injuries were reported in the accident about 7:30 a.m. near Heimdal, about 115 miles northeast of Bismarck. Ten tanker cars on the BNSF Railway train caught fire, creating thick black smoke, state Emergency Services spokeswoman Cecily Fong said. Firefighters from four area communities responded, and regional hazardous materials teams from Grand Forks and Devils Lake went to the scene, Fong said. Ten investigators from the Federal Railroad Administration were traveling to the area, said spokesman Kevin Thompson. The National Transportation Safety Board also was sending a team. The Environmental Protection Agency was sending someone to gauge any contamination to waterways in the vicinity, spokesman Rich Mylott said. The rail line through Heimdal runs […]

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Small town in central North Dakota evacuated after train carrying crude oil derails. Image: Google Maps HEIMDAL, N.D., May 6 (UPI) — Federal regulators said Wednesday a North Dakota town was evacuated after several tank cars carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire. Ten responders from the Federal Railroad Administration were dispatched to Heimdal, N.D., to investigate the cause of the incident. The small town of less than 50 residents in central North Dakota was evacuated as a security precaution. "Today’s incident is yet another reminder of why we issued a significant, comprehensive rule aimed at improving the safe transport of high hazard flammable liquids," acting Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg said in a statement. "The FRA will continue to look at all options available to us to improve safety and mitigate risks." Cecily Fong, a spokeswoman for the North Dakota State Emergency Services, said in a telephone interview […]

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WASHINGTON, DC, May 6 US Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) said he would introduce legislation requiring US railroads to replace tank cars carrying crude oil and other hazardous substances more quickly than new US Department of Transportation rules require. His announcement came 2 days after US and Canadian railway transportation regulators jointly announced the regulations ( OGJ Online, May 1, 2015 ). The regulations are a step in the right direction, but do not go far enough, Schumer said during a May 4 appearance in Menands, NY. Specifically, he said DOT’s new rules DOT-111 tank cars and their Canadian CPC-1232 tank cars to remain in service through 2023. His measure would require them to be gone within 2 years, he noted. “Allowing these outdated oil cars to continue rolling through our communities for another 8 years is a reckless gamble that we can’t afford to make,” Schumer said. Railroads […]

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WILLISTON, N.D. (Reuters) – A BNSF train that derailed in central North Dakota on Wednesday was carrying railcars owned by Hess Corp, 10 of which caught fire and forced the evacuation of a nearby town, the oil producer told Reuters late Wednesday. Emergency crews worked into the night to extinguish the fire. No one was injured. Hess, the third-largest North Dakota oil producer, said BNSF is leading cleanup efforts but added it stands ready to assist. The New York-based company said it is "fully compliant" with new North Dakota crude-treatment standards that went into effect last month. The standards, designed to mitigate the incendiary effect of crude-by-rail disasters, require combustible elements be filtered out of crude oil. It remains unclear whether the new standards helped reduce the fire caused by the derailment, but politicians, first responders and other witnesses described a subdued scene. "The scene is very anticlimactic and […]

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graph of net crude supply to PADD1 by source, as explained in the article text Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Petroleum Supply Monthly Note: All sources are net receipts except field production. PADD is Petroleum Administration for Defense District. Monthly rail receipts of crude oil accounted for more than half (52%) of the crude oil supply to East Coast refineries in February. As U.S. and Canadian production of crude oil has increased, crude supply by rail to East Coast (PADD 1) refineries has grown, displacing waterborne imports of crude oil from countries other than Canada , such as Nigeria. While refinery utilization in Petroleum Administration for Defense District (PADD) 1 in early 2015 has been below typical levels, this still marks the first time in EIA’s dataset that crude deliveries by rail have accounted for such a high percentage of East Coast refinery supply. The growth since 2010 in […]

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ENLARGE Railroad industry plans to petition for a reconsideration or challenge in court U.S. oil-train safety rules. Photo: RUSSELL GOLD FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Norfolk Southern Corp. NSC -3.08 % Chief Executive Charles W. “Wick” Moorman said that the rail industry will challenge the federal government’s new crude-by-rail rules, adding regulators have “made some serious mistakes in the regulations.” The new safety rules could make shipping crude oil by train prohibitively expensive, Mr. Moorman said in an interview on Tuesday. “At a certain point, the economics are such that you can’t justify shipping the oil. The price to get it to the refinery is too high and the downside of that is that it will throttle the journey toward energy independence in this country,” Mr. Moorman said. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Transportation called for installing new braking systems on trains hauling more than 70 cars of […]

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via Shutterstock. Reproduced at Resilience.org with permission. The long-awaited  oil-by-rail regulations  released today [May 1] are basically a guidebook for the oil and rail industries to continue doing business as usual when it comes to moving explosive Bakken crude oil by rail. DeSmog  recently reported  on how the Obama administration has worked behind the scenes to help achieve the oil industry’s top goal when it came to these new regulations — allowing the oil producers to continue to put the highly volatile Bakken crude oil into rail tank cars without removing the natural gas liquids that make it such an explosive mixture. As we’ve reported, there is a relatively simple fix to end, or significantly reduce, the “bomb train” disasters, via a process known as  stabilization. But the new regulations not only give the industry a pass on doing this, they add to the “we need more research before we […]

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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States and Canada on Friday announced long-awaited safety rules for trains carrying oil, as regulators seek to reduce risks after a series of explosive accidents that accompanied a surge in crude-by-rail shipments. The rules call for a rapid phase out of older tank cars considered unsafe during derailments, and are more aggressive than even some of the toughest proposals yet put forward. The rail and energy sectors have already expressed concern that the required speed of the phase outs is not feasible and the potentially billions of dollars in costs will be too high for the small safety improvements they deliver. Shares of railroad car and equipment manufacturers rose after the announcement. Under the rules, announced by Canada’s Minister of Transport, Lisa Raitt and U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, tank cars built before October 2011 known as DOT-111 will be phased out within […]

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ENLARGE U.S. transportation regulators issued tough new rules for railroads hauling crude oil and ethanol that will require trains be equipped with expensive new brake systems. Photo: Associated Press U.S. transportation regulators Friday issued tough new rules for railroads hauling crude oil and ethanol that will require trains be equipped with expensive new brake systems. The regulations also require that sturdier tank cars be built for hauling oil, ethanol and other flammable liquids and prescribes upgrades for an estimated 154,500 tank cars already carrying flammables. Trains carrying large amounts of crude oil will be restricted to 30 mile an hour speeds if they don’t have new electronic brakes installed by 2021. Other flammable liquids, including ethanol in high volumes would be speed-restricted after 2023. Trains with either a block of 20 or more cars or a total of 35 or more cars of flammable liquid will be required to […]

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WASHINGTON, DC, May 1 Legislation to accelerate the phase-out of older rail tank cars to reduce accidental crude oil spills has been introduced by Finance Committee Ranking Minority Member Ronald L. Wyden (D-Ore.) and six other US Senate Democrats. The bill, S. 1175 , also would impose a fee of $175/shipment on older tank cars and would make a tax credit available to railroads that upgrade newer cars to the highest required safety standard. “It’s time for the [US] Department of Transportation to push faster and more aggressively to make oil-by-rail transportation safer,” Wyden said on Apr. 30. “This legislation takes a market-based approach to get unsafe cars off the tracks and safer cars on the tracks more quickly.” The bill also would use the revenue raised by the fee to help communities and first responders be better prepared in the event of a rail accident. It would establish […]

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The leading voice for the refining sector on Thursday said it was not realistic for U.S. regulators to expect existing oil train tankers to be retired within five years, and sought a meeting with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). "The emphasis on tank car modifications through an overly aggressive and infeasible retrofit schedule creates the incorrect perception that tanks car improvements are the magic remedy," Charles Drevna, the president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers wrote. On Friday, the U.S. Transportation Department and Transport Canada are expected to outline a cross-border oil train safety plan. North Dakota’s Bakken energy fields rely on oil trains to reach distant refineries but several such shipments have derailed in fiery mishaps in the last two years. Regulators have struggled with how to make such cargo safer without cramping a major source of domestic energy. Drevna’s letter urged regulators […]

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ENLARGE Traffic backs up while a train crosses President Street in Savannah, Ga. A growing number of cities and towns are fed up with the boom in rail traffic. Photo: Stephen B. Morton for The Wall Street Journal Every day, as up to eight freight trains pass back and forth on the outskirts of historical downtown Savannah, Ga., they blow their horns at every single one of the 24 rail crossings along the three-mile stretch. That is making the Genesee & Wyoming Inc. GWR -2.11 % railroad anything but popular along tracks that, until four years ago, were essentially dormant. Noble L. Boykin Jr., whose law firm is on East 38th Street, said he and other attorneys have to take “train breaks” during depositions. He has to step into a closet for phone calls. He also lives near the tracks, so he can’t escape them—even at 5 a.m. “Everybody […]

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US and Canadian officials on Friday will jointly announce new tank car safety standards for trains carrying crude oil, ethanol and other flammable liquids, the US Department of Transportation said Thursday. The announcement came as seven Democratic US senators introduced a bill that would impose a $175/car fee on shippers using older DOT-111 tank cars, adding to the chorus of lawmakers pressuring the Obama administration to finalize its long-anticipated crude-by-rail regulations. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt will be meeting Friday in Washington to harmonize standards between the two countries, according to sources. US regulators have been criticized for how long it has taken to finalize crude-by-rail safety rules first proposed in July, as oil train derailments continue to make headlines. Article continues below… Oilgram News brings you fast-breaking global petroleum and gas news on and including: Industry players, upstream and downstream markets, refineries, midstream […]

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Declining output from shale-oil fields cut demand for key types of railroad cars, new data shows, the latest sign of the fallout from lower oil prices. Buyers ordered 4,470 new railway tank cars during the quarter ended March 31, down 6% from a year earlier and about 70% from the 14,964 tank cars ordered during the fourth quarter, according to the Railway Supply Institute, a Washington-based trade group. Tank car orders had surged along with output from shale-oil fields, whose crude oil drillers generally transport to refineries by rail. But with a global oil glut that has driven down oil prices by nearly 50% in the past year, output from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale field dropped in both January and February. And the U.S. Energy Department has predicted the Bakken field as well as Eagle Ford, a shale-oil field in South Texas, would report production decreases for April and […]

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Emergency Order Restricts Speed to 40 MPH Crude by Rail The DOT’s Federal Railroad Administration issued an emergency order on Friday that establishes a maximum speed of 40 miles an hour for certain trains going through high threat urban areas. Citing “gaps in the existing regulatory scheme”, the agency beefed up the 2014 voluntary agreement by making this speed limit a requirement for trains hauling crude oil and other flammable liquids. The emergency order defines affected trains as: 20 or more loaded tank cars in a continuous block or 35 loaded tank cars of class 3 flammable liquid AND at least one DOT-111 tank car loaded with class 3 flammable liquid The emergency order states that “Speed is a factor that may contribute to the severity of a derailment or the derailment itself. Speed can affect the probability of an accident. A lower speed may allow for a brake […]

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ENLARGE A BNSF Railway freight train loaded with crude oil derailed March 5 in a rural area near Galena, Ill. Several cars ruptured and the oil caught fire, generating large explosions. Photo: Telegraph Herald/Mike Burley/Associated Press U.S. regulators are urging railroads to change the way they deal with wheel defects, saying the problem may have caused a fiery oil-train derailment in Illinois last month. Despite multiple warning signs, a train carrying crude oil from North Dakota to Philadelphia continued to travel on a potentially faulty wheel, according to a preliminary federal investigation. Twenty-one cars of a BNSF Railway Co. oil train derailed near Galena, Ill., 160 miles west of Chicago. Several cars ruptured during the accident and the oil inside caught fire, generating large explosions. On Friday, the Federal Railroad Administration issued a safety advisory pointing to a broken wheel and telling railroads to act more aggressively to fix […]

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NTSB Calls for Stricter Rail Standards The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is urging tougher standards for oil tankers carrying Bakken crude. Related: Bakken Crude by Rail Under Attack In a 10 page letter to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the NTSB outlined its findings from their study of recent train derailment accidents and concluded that the current fleet of DOT-111 tank cars rupture too quickly and result in spillage and ignition. The agency also found that performance of the industry’s enhanced CPC-1232 rail car is unsatisfactory. Controversy over the safety of moving crude by rail has skyrocketed as several high-profile accidents have recently made headlines. This combined with a sharp increase in crude by rail since the start of the oil boom has many concerned. Related: Crude by Rail Up 1700% “We can’t wait a decade for safer rail cars,” said NTSB Chairman Christopher A. […]

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ENLARGE Oil trains traverse Jersey City, N.J., where officials are concerned about the potential for a spill. Photo: Joe Jackson/The Wall Street Journal Imagine a mile-long train transporting crude oil derailing on an elevated track in Jersey City, N.J., across the street from senior citizen housing and 2 miles from the mouth of the Holland Tunnel to Manhattan. The oil ignites, creating an intense explosion and a 300-foot fireball. The blast kills 87 people right away, and sends 500 more to the hospital with serious injuries. More than a dozen buildings are destroyed. A plume of thick black smoke spreads north to New York’s Westchester County. This fictional—but, experts say, plausible—scenario was developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in one of the first efforts by the U.S. government to map out what an oil-train accident might look like in an urban area. Agency officials unveiled it as part […]

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Connor Lake/AP/The Star Tribune An oil train south of St. Paul, Minnesota, in July 2014. After almost two years of deliberation, Barack Obama’s administration is expected to enact regulations next month that will attempt to protect trackside communities from exploding oil trains . However, the new rule won’t take the one step that could decrease the risk almost immediately — requiring North Dakota oil producers to either reduce their product’s explosiveness or ship it in pressurized cars. Officials say they can’t take that step because nobody really knows how to reduce or properly measure the oil’s volatility. Roughly a dozen oil trains have exploded in the United States and Canada in the past 21 months, including one in Quebec that left 47 people dead. The U.S. Department of Transportation has repeatedly warned of the unusual volatility of North Dakota’s oil. But the draft of the new rule that was […]

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Federal regulators say industry not acting quick enough to ensure safety of rail cars carrying crude oil. Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) — The National Transportation Safety Board called on the rail industry to act quickly to replace or retrofit cars designated to carry crude oil. The NTSB said it can’t "wait a decade" for safer rail cars while crude oil delivery by rail increases at an exponential rate. "That is why this issue is on our Most Wanted List of safety improvements," NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said in a statement. "The industry needs to make this issue a priority and expedite the safety enhancements, otherwise, we continue to put our communities at risk." The increase in U.S. crude oil production is more than the existing network of pipelines can handle, leaving the energy industry to rely on rail as an alternate shipping method. Federal data […]

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Some oil companies have turned to trains to move crude to refineries. ENLARGE Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News The growth in oil-train shipments fueled by the U.S. energy boom has stalled in recent months, dampened by safety problems and low crude prices . The number of train cars carrying crude and other petroleum products peaked last fall, according to data from the Association of American Railroads, and began edging down. In March, oil-train traffic was down 7% on a year-over-year basis. Railroads have been a major beneficiary of the U.S. energy boom, as oil companies turned to trains to move crude to refineries from remote oil fields in North Dakota and other areas not served by pipelines. Rail shipments of oil have expanded from 20 million barrels in 2010 to just under 374 million barrels last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. About 1.38 million barrels a […]

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LONDON (Reuters) – More than 1 million barrels of crude oil move by train across the United States every day, according to data published for the first time by the government on Tuesday. The volume of crude shipped by rail has increased more than 50-fold in five years, from just 630,000 barrels in January 2010 to 33.7 million barrels in January 2015, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) revealed in its first monthly report on movements of oil by rail ( link.reuters.com/vyt44w ). Until now, information on oil shipments has been incomplete, partly confidential and scattered across a number of sources. The Association of American Railroads, individual railroad companies, and the federal government’s Surface Transportation Board, which regulates freight rates, have all published limited data on shipments. The EIA has now brought together the confidential data from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board and Canada’s National Energy Board as well as […]

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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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North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple calls for tighter rules to ensure safe transport of crude oil from state’s Bakken shale reserve. Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock There’s no way to offer a single solution that would allay concerns about the safety of crude oil transit by rail, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple said. Dalrymple spoke with U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx to discuss efforts to improve the safe transport of crude oil by rail from the state. The Republican governor said he called on the secretary to adopt new standards for rail cars carrying crude oil as soon as possible . "Secretary Foxx and I agree that there is no single solution to improving the safety of rail transportation," Dalrymple said in a statement Wednesday. North Dakota crude oil production is more than existing pipeline capacity can handle, forcing many in the industry to use rail as an alternative transit […]

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(Bloomberg) — 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 […]

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Sign up for our daily Energy Newsletter Federal agencies slow to address safety standards for crude oil transport by rail, critics say. Photo courtesy Transportation Safety Board of Canada ONTARIO, Quebec, March 18 (UPI) — Federal regulators in North America are under pressure from industry bodies and environmental advocates worried about the safe transport of oil by rail. North American crude oil production has increased to the point that there’s not enough pipeline infrastructure to handle deliveries. That leaves energy companies to rely more on rail as an alternate transit method and, with that, comes more derailments involving trains carrying oil. Canadian officials are still responding to a March 7 derailment of a Canadian National Railway Co. train carrying crude oil through Ontario. Three of the 39 cars that derailed fell into an area river in a ball of flames . Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced new regulations […]

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OTTAWA, March 17 (Reuters) – Canada’s transportation watchdog said on Tuesday that recent fiery derailments of trains hauling crude oil mean a new generation of stronger tanker wagons should be introduced ahead of schedule. The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) is probing two accidents within the last month involving Canadian National Railway Co oil trains which came off the tracks and caught fire near the small northern Ontario town of Gogama. Both trains were hauling CPC-1232 crude tankers, meant to be safer than the older DOT-111 models that blew up in downtown Lac-Megantic, Quebec in 2013, killing 47 people. Canada last week unveiled tough standards for a new generation of tanker cars that would replace the CPC-1232s by 2025 at the latest. "While the proposed standards look promising, the TSB has concerns about the implementation timeline, given initial observations of the performance of CPC-1232 cars in recent derailments," the agency […]

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(Bloomberg) — BNSF Railway Co. was sued by a trade group representing 400 U.S. refiners and petrochemical makers objecting to a $1,000 surcharge the nation’s biggest rail transporter of crude oil tacked onto older, unjacketed tank cars. Link to Company News:{BRK/A US <Equity> CN <GO>} To contact the reporter on this story: David E. Rovella in New York at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at [email protected]

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(Bloomberg) — Lower speed limits for railroads may be ineffective at keeping oil trains on the tracks and preventing massive fireballs, such as those triggered in a series of recent derailments, the chief U.S. railroad regulator said. “If you’re going to slow trains down, you’re going to have to slow them down to 12 miles an hour,” Sarah Feinberg, acting chief of the Federal Railroad Administration, told reporters in Washington Friday. “And then you would just have other dangers. People queuing up at grade crossings while train car after train car of volatile product goes by,” she said. “That’s not good either.” A surge in U.S. oil production has increased the amount of crude moved by rail 5,000 percent since 2009, much of it from North Dakota’s booming Bakken field. A corresponding jump in accidents, including a 2013 oil-train derailment and explosion that killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, […]

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(Bloomberg) — Canada is strengthening proposed new safety standards for rail cars carrying crude oil, requiring thicker steel and other improvements after a 2013 derailment killed 47 people. The latest Transport Canada proposals, published online Wednesday, go beyond earlier announcements by requiring rail cars carrying crude to have thicker steel, full “head shields,” mandatory thermal “jacket” protection among other upgrades. Canada continues to work with the U.S. on rail standards, the document said, adding the U.S. will make its own decisions. In its online update, Transport Canada said the Transportation Safety Board had pushed for improvements from those initially published in January 2014. Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced the new standards, which are still subject to federal cabinet approval, in parliament Wednesday. The standards create “a new class of tank car specifically designed to transport flammable liquids by rail,” said Zach Segal, a spokesman for Raitt. The updated proposals […]

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Fires tied to derailment of train carrying crude oil through Ontario extinguished and traffic to resume through region. Photo: Daniel J. Graeber The last of the fires tied to the derailment of a train carrying crude oil through Ontario have been extinguished, local officials said. A train carrying crude oil on a line operated by Canadian National Railway Co. derailed during the weekend in Gogama, Ontario. CN said a nearby bridge was damaged in the derailment, and five of the cars crashed into an area river. Some of the fires tied to the crash were allowed to burn out on their own. The village of Gogama said in a late Monday update rail cars were pulled from the river and rail traffic was expected to resume by Tuesday afternoon. "CN crews and external specialist firefighters extinguished the last of the fires at the Gogama derailment site," the village said. […]

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LONDON (Reuters) – Two more serious derailments and fires involving trains carrying crude oil in the past week confirm there is a serious problem with the safety culture on North American railroads. The latest fiery derailments occurred in northern Illinois involving a train operated by BNSF and northern Ontario involving a train operated by Canadian National Railway. They come just weeks after serious oil train fires in West Virginia involving a train operated by CSX and another Canadian National derailment in northern Ontario. Fortunately, these derailments occurred in sparsely populated areas, but it is only a matter of time before a train derails in a densely populated urban center and risks a mass casualty incident. The U.S. Department of Transportation predicts more than 200 crude and ethanol carrying trains will derail over the next 20 years, including ten in urban areas. Based on plausible assumptions, at least one of […]

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