UPDATE: "Five years before a train loaded with crude oil derailed and exploded
last year in Quebec, killing 47 people, another derailment in Oklahoma
should have given federal regulators an early warning that the type of
oil both trains carried was more flammable than authorities realized," Curtis Tate reports for McClatchy Newspapers.
The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced today that "Crude oil produced in North America’s booming Bakken region may be more flammable and therefore more dangerous to ship by rail than crude from other areas," Angela Greiling Keane and Mark Drajem report for Bloomberg News. PHMSA said on its website that it "is reinforcing the requirement to properly test, characterize, classify, and where appropriate sufficiently degasify hazardous materials prior to and during transportation."
The agency had studied the issue for four months, after the catastrophic derailment of an oil train in Quebec, and announced its preliminary conclusion "three days after a BNSF Railway Co. train carrying oil caught fire after a collision in Casselton, N.D.," the reporters note. (Photo by Valley City Times-Record) "The North Dakota accident is the fourth major North
American derailment in six months by trains transporting crude.
Record volumes of oil are moving by rail as production from
North Dakota and Texas pushes U.S. output to the most since 1988
and pipeline capacity has failed to keep up. . . . About three-quarters
of the oil produced in North Dakota is shipped by rail rather
than pipeline."
The train that derailed in Quebec was carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale formation in northwestern North Dakota and eastern Montana. Canada's Transportation Safety Board said it should have been labeled as a middle-hazard crude (PG II), not lower-hazard (PG III). "PHMSA announced that it was establishing new rules for fuel shipments in September. That agency and the rail-safety regulator are also considering a rule to require stronger tank cars. The proposal has the rail industry’s support and is being challenged by the shippers that own or lease the railcars," Bloomberg reports.
"The energy industry has been reluctant to discuss publicly what might be causing the problem," Russell Gold and Lynn Cook report for The Wall Street Journal. "It is possible, experts say, that unusually large amounts of naturally occurring and highly flammable petroleum products such as propane and ethane are coming out of the ground with the Bakken crude. Last March, Tesoro Logistics LP reported the Bakken crude it was transporting by rail was increasingly volatile.
"Another possibility is that impurities are being introduced during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That process involves pumping chemicals or other additives along with water and sand into a well to free more fossil fuels. One such additive is hydrochloric acid, a highly caustic material, which federal investigators suspect could be corroding the inside of rail tank cars, weakening them. Oil from fracked wells can also be laced with benzene and other volatile and highly flammable organic compounds." (Read more)
But there also may be something different about the oil. "In New Town, N.D., where the ill-fated [Quebec] train was loaded with Bakken crude, locals like to boast that the honey-colored oil is so light they can take it right from the well and pour it into truck engines because it requires little refining," Jacquie McNish and Grant Robertson report for The Globe and Mail of Toronto.
The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced today that "Crude oil produced in North America’s booming Bakken region may be more flammable and therefore more dangerous to ship by rail than crude from other areas," Angela Greiling Keane and Mark Drajem report for Bloomberg News. PHMSA said on its website that it "is reinforcing the requirement to properly test, characterize, classify, and where appropriate sufficiently degasify hazardous materials prior to and during transportation."
The train that derailed in Quebec was carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale formation in northwestern North Dakota and eastern Montana. Canada's Transportation Safety Board said it should have been labeled as a middle-hazard crude (PG II), not lower-hazard (PG III). "PHMSA announced that it was establishing new rules for fuel shipments in September. That agency and the rail-safety regulator are also considering a rule to require stronger tank cars. The proposal has the rail industry’s support and is being challenged by the shippers that own or lease the railcars," Bloomberg reports.
"The energy industry has been reluctant to discuss publicly what might be causing the problem," Russell Gold and Lynn Cook report for The Wall Street Journal. "It is possible, experts say, that unusually large amounts of naturally occurring and highly flammable petroleum products such as propane and ethane are coming out of the ground with the Bakken crude. Last March, Tesoro Logistics LP reported the Bakken crude it was transporting by rail was increasingly volatile.
"Another possibility is that impurities are being introduced during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That process involves pumping chemicals or other additives along with water and sand into a well to free more fossil fuels. One such additive is hydrochloric acid, a highly caustic material, which federal investigators suspect could be corroding the inside of rail tank cars, weakening them. Oil from fracked wells can also be laced with benzene and other volatile and highly flammable organic compounds." (Read more)
But there also may be something different about the oil. "In New Town, N.D., where the ill-fated [Quebec] train was loaded with Bakken crude, locals like to boast that the honey-colored oil is so light they can take it right from the well and pour it into truck engines because it requires little refining," Jacquie McNish and Grant Robertson report for The Globe and Mail of Toronto.
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CHLORINE GAS TRANSPORTATION SAFETY
First Responders ask federal administrations to consider adding secondary containment to rail tank cars used to transport chlorine gas, providing lifesaving safety to First Responders and the public they serve. See First Responders Comments at PETITION C KIT.
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