A recent explosion along a rail line near Casselton, N.D., has sent more sparks flying as lawmakers, regulators and industry pursue improvements in rail safety.
The crash on Dec. 30, which sent huge fireballs into the air just west of Casselton, about 20 miles west of Fargo, was the result of a derailed train carrying soybeans shifting onto the track of an oncoming 106-car oil train.
Following the Casselton accident, Gov. Jack Dalrymple met with BNSF Railway CEO Matt Rose on Jan. 3 to discuss ways to enhance rail safety. Dalrymple said the railroad industry needs to review its emergency communication systems to safeguard against accidents similar to what occurred near Casselton.
“We’re going to pursue this until we’re satisfied that the appropriate measures are in place for maximum public safety,” Dalrymple said in a Jan. 3 press release.
U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., was scheduled to meet with Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Cynthia L. Quarterman, head of the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, on Jan. 9, to push the importance of updating rail car standards.
“One-third of the fleet has already transitioned, but (manufacturers) still don’t know what the requirements are from PHMSA. PHMSA has got to get those requirements out there so we can make that transition as aggressively as possible,” Hoeven told reporters in the Capitol on Jan 7.
“Industry ... needs certainty. Get the new requirements out there so they know what they are. That’s going to help us transition the fleet faster,” Hoeven said.
While the Casselton crash stirred up a call for action from the state, broader-based entities have been pushing for safer rules for a long time, and remain unsatisfied.
Pleading for change
PHMSA announced its consideration to improve regulations for transporting hazardous materials by rail in September, prompted by petitions from regulators and the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB. NTSB has repeatedly warned that the tank car carrying oil, known as the DOT-111, has a serious design flaw in which its relatively thin metal skin has a high incidence of rupturing when involved in accidents and derailments. Following the investigation of a June 2009 derailment in Illinois, NTSB made a series of recommendations to PHMSA to require that the DOT-111 tank cars be retrofitted with the necessary equipment to be more crashworthy.
The Association of American Railroads, AAR, also urged PHMSA to press for improved federal tank car regulations by requiring all tank cars used to transport flammable liquids be retrofitted or phased out, and new cars built to more stringent standards. The AAR told PHMSA the safety upgrades it recommends will substantially decrease the likelihood of a release if a tank car is involved in an accident.
The AAR estimates that roughly 92,000 tank cars are currently moving flammable liquids, with approximately 78,000 of those requiring retrofit or phase out based on its proposal. Another 14,000 newer tank cars that today comply with the latest industry safety standards will also require certain retrofit modifications under AAR’s proposal. The tank cars affected by the AAR’s recommended safety enhancements include those used to transport crude oil and ethanol.
As Petroleum News Bakken reported in November, AAR President and Chief Executive Officer Edward R. Hamberger says the time has come to take a closer look at the tank cars moving crude oil in the U.S. “We believe it’s time for a thorough review of the U.S. tank car fleet that moves flammable liquids, particularly considering the recent increase in crude oil traffic,” Hamberger said in a November press release. “Our goal is to ensure that what we move, and how we move it, is done as safely as possible.”
At the same time, AAR does not want PHMSA to ignore rail car supply and demand.
“We have asked that PHMSA do this as swiftly as possible, but do it in a way that doesn’t undermine the ability of railroads to meet the demand to move this oil,” AAR spokeswoman Holly Arthur told Petroleum News Bakken on Jan. 6.
Since the railroad does not own the rail cars, she says any rule changes will fall on rail car owner’s financial shoulders, not the railroad.
The hazards of light, sweet crude
But it isn’t just the rail cars that need improvement. Knowing what is inside each car has become somewhat of a mystery.
On Jan. 2, PHMSA issued a safety alert warning that the sweet, light crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region may be more volatile than traditional heavy crude.
“Proper characterization will identify properties that could affect the integrity of the packaging or present additional hazards, such as corrosivity, sulfur content, and dissolved gas content,” the agency said in its alert.
The state’s Department of Mineral Resources, DMR, Public Information Officer Alison Ritter told Petroleum News Bakken that there isn’t a question of whether light crude is more flammable than heavy crude — it’s been known for a long time that it’s more flammable.
“Instead, the main discussion is whether or not there is a comparison from light sweet to light sweet,” Ritter says. “So PHMSA is studying other crudes that are transported by DOT-111, not just the traditional heavy crude.”
DMR collects data on the physical properties of Bakken crude oil and makes those data publically available, but the department itself does not analyze the data.
Federal concerns
In July 2013, the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration, FRA, notified the petroleum industry about high levels of corrosion in rail cars, believed to be caused by hydrogen sulfide in oil from the Bakken area. The corrosion is believed to make the tank cars more susceptible to rupture or explosions.
This prompted PHMSA and the FRA to initiate Operation Classification, an inspection and sampling investigation designed to reinforce the federal requirement that crude oil coming out of the ground in the Bakken Region be sampled, tested and properly classified before being transported.
“Through sampling and testing, the federal government also seeks to better understand the organic composition of the crude oil coming from the Bakken Region. This effort is still on-going and we intend to publicly share the results of our investigation once the exercise is completed,” FRA Associate Administrator Kevin Thompson stated in an email.
Rail cars carrying more than just crude
Testing rail car contents carries its own concerns, though. As Petroleum News Bakken reported in our Dec. 29 issue, an Irving Oil refinery employee gave a presentation on June 6, 2013, saying that testing comes “too late in the process to address any safety issues.” The presentation was given during a Crude Oil Quality Association conference in Seattle.
Gary Weimer is a quality and control manager at Irving’s refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, one of many that process Bakken crude. His presentation states that the refinery has encountered rail cars littered with trash, others with residual substances, and one car contained three different crude types.
“Samples are not from a homogenous mixture,” the documents say. “Rail cars after 5-7 days delivery time have begun layering; water and sediment on bottom; light products on top.”
Weimer recommends more testing at the loading terminals to help “identify issues related to safety of personnel or specification while the rail car is in transit,” the Irving document says. “This will give time to plan action from the data.”
