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Despite Risks, Canada’s Tar Sands Industry Is Betting Big on Oil Trains
Despite Risks, Canada’s Tar Sands Industry Is Betting Big on Oil Trains
Last year, Canada exported a record amount of tar sands oil to the U.S., despite low oil prices leading to major losses once again for the struggling tar sands industry. That achievement required a big bump in hauling oil by rail, with those daily volumes in late 2018 more than double the previous record in 2014 during the first oil-by-rail boom.
Canada’s oil industry essentially has reached its limit for exporting oil into the U.S. through pipelines. That’s why it’s turning to rail to export more and more oil, but as an ever-increasing number of oil trains hit the tracks of North America, expect more accidents and oil spills to follow.
If Canada can open up new pipeline capacity, this scenario may change. However, Enbridge recently announced its Line 3 pipeline replacement will be delayed until at least the second half of 2020. That means if Canadian tar sands companies want to increase exports, they will have to move that oil by rail. ConocoPhillips chief financial officer Don Wallette, Jr. recently confirmed this reliance on oil trains to the Wall Street Journal: “The intention is to bridge us over to the next major pipeline expansion, so a few years.”
This could result in a near doubling of the current record volumes of Canadian crude moving by rail. Trains potentially could haul over 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the next two years, an outcome I predicted four years ago when the Canadian industry was moving only 150,000 bpd of oil by rail.
To put these volumes in perspective, the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline will have a capacity of 760,000 bpd. Oil trains amount to a veritable pipeline on wheels.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Oil-by-Rail Giant BNSF Threatens Shutdown Over Safety
In June of 2014, a representative of oil-by-rail giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) attended a meeting with regulators where the American Association of Railroads (AAR) lobbied against any speed limits for oil trains. One of the slides from that presentation – titled “Far Reaching Economic Impacts” (image below) — predicted dire consequences to the American economy if speed limits were put in place.
There was no mention of the safety benefits of such a speed limit in the presentation.
And now BNSF is back at it, informing regulators that if a congressionally mandated requirement from 2008 that requires all railroads to implement positive train control (PTC) by the end of 2015 isn’t extended, they may just shut down BNSF.
No trains will run. Because BNSF apparently is so concerned about safety that the company would rather not operate if it can’t do it in the safest manner possible.
Aside from those speed limits it is against. And the modern braking systems it opposes. And its efforts to move to a single person crew for oil trains.
The rail industry is great at publicity stunts. Earlier this year, Hunter Harrison, CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) also threatened to get out of the oil-by-rail business citing safety risks to “the public.” Meanwhile, as noted on DeSmog, two days after that threat, CP’s vice president of safety was in D.C. lobbying against modern braking systems for oil trains.
And BNSF has pulled off some good public relations stunts in its efforts to shape the narrative on oil-by-rail safety. In early 2014, after a string of oil-by-rail accidents, BNSF announced that it would not wait for regulators and would be investing in 5,000 new rail tank cars that exceeded all existing safety requirements.
As documented by DeSmog, these cars never existed anywhere other than on a press release.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Minority, Low-Income Communities Bear Disproportionate Share Of Risk From Oil Trains In California
People of color and low-income communities are bearing a disproportionate burden of risk from dangerous oil trains rolling through California, according to a new report by ForestEthics and Communities for a Better Environment.
Called “Crude Injustice On The Rails,” the report found that 80 percent of the 5.5 million Californians with homes in the oil train blast zone — the one-mile region around train tracks that would need to be evacuated in the event of an oil train derailment, explosion and fire — live in communities with predominantly minority, low-income or non-English speaking households.
Nine of California’s 10 largest cities that have oil train routes running through them have an even higher rate of “discriminatory impact,” the authors of the report found. In those cities, 82–100 percent of people living in the blast zone are in what they call “environmental justice communities.”
“In California you are 33 percent more likely to live in the blast zone if you live in a nonwhite, low income, or non-English speaking household,” Matt Krogh, ForestEthics extreme oil campaign director and one of the authors of the report, said in a statement.
New oil-by-rail rules inadequate
The Obama Administration released new oil-by-rail regulations in May that were heavily criticized as inadequate because the industry had too much influence over the final rules, which would not stop more incidents like the oil train derailment in North Dakota in May that led to an explosion and fire that burned for days. That was the fifth accident of its kind in theUS so far this year.
Massive fireballs and raging infernos often accompany oil train accidents because of the highly volatile Bakken crude they frequently carry. Yet, as Justin Mikulka wrote here on DeSmog, the US Department of Transportation’s new regulations are so weak as to be little more than “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.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Exploding Trains, No New Regulations, Record Industry Profits: The Oil-by-Rail Story
Exploding Trains, No New Regulations, Record Industry Profits: The Oil-by-Rail Story
A month ago there was a close call for the oil-by-rail industry. As part of the Cromnibus bill that President Obama signed in December, new oil-by-rail regulations were supposed to be finalized and implemented by regulators by January 15th.
Two days before that deadline, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the agency responsible for new regulations, posted new documents on their website related to recent meetings between PHMSA and various oil and rail industry lobbyists.
They did not issue a press release about these meetings, unlike the meetings a year ago when the industry volunteered to try improving its safety record and there was plenty of publicity.
And then it was announced that new regulations would once again be delayed, this time until May 2015.
Since that delay an ethanol train has derailed resulting in burning rail cars and ethanol spilling into the Mississippi River. An oil train derailed and caught fire in Gogama, Canada. And another oil train of Bakken crude oil derailed, exploded, andleaked oil into the Kanawha River near Mount Carbon, West Virginia.
Also, since the announced delay of regulations there have been two congressional hearings on this issue. In one, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) was adamant that the proposed new regulations were “unattainable” and in the next Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) lectured the hearing attendees on how it was necessary for everyone to be“singing the same tune” so the American public didn’t get the “misperception” that the oil-by-rail industry isn’t safe.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
