Home » Posts tagged 'oil transportation'

Tag Archives: oil transportation

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Finding A Way Around The World’s Largest Oil Chokepoint

December 9, 2020

Finding A Way Around The World’s Largest Oil Chokepoint

Oil is sometimes referred to as ‘black gold’. The discovery and export of fossil fuels have led to tremendous wealth creation for certain countries. In this sense, no region in the world is more blessed than the Middle East. Especially the countries surrounding the Persian Gulf are rich in oil and gas deposits. Unfortunately, political instability is almost a synonym for the Middle East. The risk of supply disruptions is a significant threat for those heavily reliant on fossil fuel sales. Therefore, risk mitigation is an important part of the business.

The antagonism between Iran and the U.S. escalated significantly under President Trump. According to sources, Washington came close to acting militarily but the President was dissuaded when informed on the risks and potential losses. Skyrocketing oil prices are one of those consequences as Tehran has repeatedly threatened to close off the Strait of Hormuz in case it is attacked. Approximately 20 percent of the world’s oil travels through the narrow strait separating mainland Iran from Oman and the UAE. Even a short disruption of supplies will most definitely have a devastating effect on prices. Circumventing the Strait, therefore, is essential to maintain exports to markets.

While Iran has been the most vocal when it comes to threats concerning the Strait, it has a contingency plan if the situation escalates. The country is currently building a pipeline from Goreh near the border with Iraq and Kuwait where the majority of the country’s oil is produced to Jask on the Gulf of Oman. The project is slated to be finished in March 2021 and has a capacity of one million barrels per day (mbpd).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

12 Empty Supertankers Tell Us Everything We Need To Know About The Oil Market

February 24, 2019

12 Empty Supertankers Tell Us Everything We Need To Know About The Oil Market

As the US battles with its OPEC+ rivals over the direction of global oil prices (Trump wants to keep oil prices subdued, while Saudi Arabia and Russia, reeling from years of prices too low to balance their budgets, are desperately hoping to push them higher with another round of production cuts), 12 supertankers sailing across the Atlantic can tell us a lot about the changing supply dynamics in the global oil market.

The tankers have been traveling a route spanning thousands of miles with no cargo other than some seawater needed for ballast. Of course, in normal times, the ships would be filled with heavy, high sulfur Middle East oil for delivery to refineries in places like Houston or New Orleans.

Tanker

But these aren’t “normal” times. Following the OPE+ agreement to cut 1.5 mb/d, the ships are sailing cargo-less – forgoing profits on half of their journey – just so they can pick up the light crude that US shale producers – which briefly turned the US into a net-exporter of oil for the first time late last year – have been relentlessly pumping, according to Bloomberg.

WTI

That’s quite a sacrifice for the owners of the ships, which are traveling 21,000 with nothing to show for it.

The 12 vessels are making voyages of as much as 21,000 miles direct from Asia, all the way around South Africa, holding nothing but seawater for stability because Middle East producers are restricting supplies. Still, America’s booming volumes of light crude must still be exported, and there aren’t enough supertankers in the Atlantic Ocean for the job. So they’re coming empty.

“What’s driving this is a U.S. oil market that’s looking relatively bearish with domestic production estimates trending higher, and persistent crude oil builds we have seen for the last few weeks,” said Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING Bank NV in Amsterdam.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Exclusive: Newly Released Inspection Reports on Keystone XL’s Southern Route Fuel Doubt Over ‘Safest Pipeline Ever Built’ Claims

March 3, 2016

Exclusive: Newly Released Inspection Reports on Keystone XL’s Southern Route Fuel Doubt Over ‘Safest Pipeline Ever Built’ Claims

TransCanada’s claim that the southern route of the Keystone XL Pipeline is the safest pipeline ever built in the in the United States is challenged by the release of new documentation confirming multiple code violations.

Daily inspection reports on the construction of the pipeline obtained by the Tar Sands Blockade, an activist group, renew questions about the pipeline’s integrity.
Mounting evidence that the pipeline was not built to mandated minimum requirements established by the American Petroleum Institute increases the chances the pipeline will leak or experience a catastrophic spill.

The reports — prepared by federal regulators with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) — reveal some code violations not previously disclosed. The number of reports also account for less than half the number of days the agency claims it spent inspecting the pipeline while it was being constructed.

Last year President Obama denied TransCanada a permit to build the northern route of the Keystone XL pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border.But his administration had fast-tracked the construction of the southern leg of the project in 2012.

The Keystone XL‘s southern route, renamed the Keystone Gulf Coast Pipeline when the project was split into sections, goes from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast. In Cushing, the pipeline connects to TransCanada’s pipeline network that originates in Alberta, Canada.

After mandatory safety tests revealed potential problems with the integrity of the southern pipeline, TransCanada dug up 130 sites and made repairs before the pipeline was permitted to start up.

PHMSA noted in its final inspection report that 37 sections of pipe had to be cut out and replaced and many areas of the pipeline’s coating had to be repaired.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Nationwide Resistance To Crude Oil ‘Bomb Trains’ Gaining Momentum

February 12, 2016

Nationwide Resistance To Crude Oil ‘Bomb Trains’ Gaining Momentum

In 2014, Terry Wechsler, an environmental attorney in northwest Washington, summed up why there hadn’t been opposition to the initial oil-by-rail terminals on the west coast, telling Reuters, “There was no opposition to the other three proposals only because we weren’t aware they were in formal permitting.”

But now the public knows. And despite public relations efforts by regulators and industry lobbyists, the public also knows that the crude oil “bomb trains” still pose a huge risk to communities along the rail lines.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recently released its Top 10 Most Wanted List for 2016, and the list included addressing oil train risks. The Washington Post reported NTSB chairman Christopher Hart’s concerns regarding oil trains.

“We’ve been lucky thus far that derailments involving flammable liquids in America have not yet occurred in a populated area,” Hart said. “But an American version of Lac-Mégantic could happen at any time. Instead of happening out in the middle of a wheat field it could happen in the middle of a big city.”

Nearly three years after Lac-Megantic, the head of the NTSB is saying an accident like that could happen at “any time” in a major American city.

So it is no wonder that efforts to stop new oil-by-rail infrastructure and shut down existing transportation of crude by rail are spreading across the country.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New Oil-By-Rail Regulations Are Big Win for Oil and Rail Industries, Won’t Stop “Bomb Trains”

May 4, 2015

New Oil-By-Rail Regulations Are Big Win for Oil and Rail Industries, Won’t Stop “Bomb Trains”

The long-awaited oil-by-rail regulations released today 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 do anything” approach that is the preferred tactic the industry and regulators are using to delay addressing the issue.

On page 232 of the new regulations, they state the following:

Any specific regulatory changes related to treatment of crude oil would consider further research and be handled in a separate action.

If you are a Bakken oil producer, that one sentence out of the close to 400 pages of new regulations is all you need to know. Time to start writing thank you notes to your lobbyists.

As Al Jazeera recently reported, quoting a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston who was commenting on the science of Bakken crude:

“The notion that this requires significant research and development is a bunch of BS.”

A similar sentiment was expressed in an editorial published by RailwayAge earlier this week responding to the Department of Energy announcement that it will study the issue of Bakken oil volatility

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New Report Warns of West Coast Tar Sands Oil Invasion

April 30, 2015

New Report Warns of West Coast Tar Sands Oil Invasion

The West Coast of the United States and Canada is facing an imminent tar sands oil invasion, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

“The West Coast is about to fall victim to a tar sands invasion, unless our leaders choose to protect the health and safety of our communities and say no to Big Oil,” said Anthony Swift, deputy director of NRDC‘s Canada Project. “At a time when the nation is moving toward a clean energy future, there is no reason to welcome the dirtiest oil on the planet into our communities.”

While the West Coast is not currently the destination for much tar sands oil, the area’s heavy oil refining capacity and deepwater port access make it a likely destination for large amounts of Canadian tar sands oil in the future.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) forecasts that tar sands supply will increase from 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2013 to 6.2 million bpd by 2030. To achieve those volumes, a significant portion of that oil would have to go to the West Coast by a combination of pipelines, rail and tanker.

The new report notes that if current plans for infrastructure to handle tar sands oil transportation proceed, “tar sands refining on the West Coast could increase eightfold, from about 100,000 bpd in 2013 to nearly 800,000 bpd in coming decades.” To put this in perspective, this is approximately the amount the proposed TransCanada KXL pipeline would transport to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil-by-Rail Reality: Watch What Industry Does, Not What They Say

January 22, 2015

Oil-by-Rail Reality: Watch What Industry Does, Not What They Say

“In the past month, there have been numerous public relations efforts suggesting that much is being done to improve oil by rail safety. Unfortunately, it seems these efforts will not involve much more than press releases and hollow promises.”

Those words were first published on DeSmogBlog in March of last year in an article titled Why Nothing Will Happen On Oil by Rail Safety.

In that article, one particular public relations effort was highlighted:

“One of the more popular talking points in the recent PR effort was that BNSF, the railroad that is the largest transporter of oil by rail, had volunteered to buy 5,000 new rail tank cars that exceed any existing safety standard.”

This statement was referring to articles such as the one in the Wall Street Journallast February stating, “BNSF Railway said it plans to buy as many as 5,000 new tank cars to transport crude oil, an unusual move that marks the latest effort by the rail industry to improve safety after a spate of accidents.” Similar articles appeared in Reuters (“Exclusive: BNSF to move into tank car ownership with safer oil fleet”) and CNBC.

It was a clear message. The rail industry was not waiting on new regulations to improve safety and would take steps immediately to make the movement of oil by rail safer. Tough to argue with that, right?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress