Marine Link
Friday, March 29, 2024
SUBSCRIBE

Oil Trains News

01 Oct 2015

New Risks Moving Crude Oil by Rail

The rapidly changing landscape of crude oil exploration and drilling in the US and Canada, together with economic considerations, logistical issues related to pipeline transport, and the availability of new types of crude oils, including Bakken crude and various forms of bitumen, have resulted in a very sudden and dramatic increase in the transport of crude oil by railroad. “Unit trains” containing 100 or more tank cars are transporting crude oil through regions that have not previously experienced this type of rail transport, and there are significant concerns about safety.

08 Sep 2015

Oil Train Risks Impact U.S. School Kids

Thousands of U.S. schools sit along rail corridors used to carry toxic substances such as crude oil and would be at risk in the event of a derailment, an environmental group said on Tuesday as it called for a temporary halt on oil trains. ForestEthics said its analysis of U.S. Department of Education data show nearly 15,000 schools with 5.7 million students sit inside the so-called 'blast zone', the one-mile area along railroad tracks the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) recommends be evacuated in case of crashes. The DoT moved in May to lower maximum speeds to 40 miles per hours in cities, phase out older tank cars that can puncture, have carriers use safer routes, and require better brakes after a string of accidents.

14 Jul 2015

Train Lobby Pushes to Weaken Safety Rule

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is set to be a chief beneficiary of a bid by Senate Republicans to weaken new regulations to improve train safety in the $2.8 billion crude-by-rail industry, a key cog in the development of the vast North American shale oil fields. A series of oil train accidents, including the July 2013 explosion of a train carrying crude in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people, led U.S. and Canadian regulators to announce sweeping safety rules in May. Among other things, U.S. oil trains are required to install new electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes. But in late June, the Republican-controlled Senate Commerce Committee approved a measure to drop that requirement, and order years of new research to confirm the safety benefits of ECP brakes.

30 Mar 2015

U.S. Oil Train Traffic mostly from Midwest to East Coast

U.S. oil trains delivered more than 13.5 million barrels of crude oil from the Midwest to the East Coast in January, according to government data that gives a first of its kind snapshot of such shipments. The data from the Energy Information Administration is the first if its kind from the independent statistics arm of the U.S. Energy Department. Oil producers in North Dakota have relied on oil trains to reach East Coast refiners eager to process the light, sweet crude from that energy patch. Link to data: http://tinyurl.com/nlhsvak Reporting By Patrick Rucker and Timothy Gardner

31 Aug 2014

Oil Train Regulation Passes in California

California lawmakers on Friday passed legislation requiring railroad companies to tell emergency officials when crude oil trains will chug through the state. The bill would require railroads to notify the state's Office of Emergency Services when trains carrying crude oil from Canada and North Dakota are headed to refineries in the most populous U.S. state. It passed its final vote in the Assembly 61-1, with strong bipartisan support within the state legislature in Sacramento. The bill now goes to Democratic Governor Jerry Brown for his signature. "We have a spotlight on this issue because of the seriousness of the risk to public safety that it presents," said the bill's author, Democratic Assembly man Roger Dickinson, whose district encompasses parts of Sacramento along the trains' route.

27 May 2014

North American Oil Trains Under Scrutiny

Sheriff Craig Apple assured a room of concerned citizens that county emergency crews were prepared to handle an oil-train accident involving three or four tank cars. Firefighters have been training to combat railcar fires with foam, and evacuation plans are detailed in a 500-page emergency response plan, Apple told residents in a May 12 address. Albany's tracks handle as much as a fourth of the oil pumped from North Dakota's booming Bakken Shale, or up to several 100-car trains per day, each carrying 70,000 barrels. It is one of several spots along North America's new oil-by-rail corridors where residents and officials are restless, following six fiery derailments in the past 10 months.