It has taken only six months for Canada’s Transport Minister Lisa Raitt and its Transportation Safety Board to be vindicated in their views about the volatility of crude oil still being moved by rail in North America.
Two derailments in the past month by Canadian National Railway trains in northern Ontario have demonstrated that Raitt and the board were right that no matter what measures they introduced in the wake of the Lac-Megantic, Quebec, disaster, the variability in the properties of petroleum crude oil had not been addressed.
The surprise for many stemmed from the explosions and fires that followed the CN Rail accidents, both involving trains hauling synthetic crude from the Alberta oil sands to the Valero Energy facility in Quebec for further refining.
It had been assumed that oil sands products were less volatile than lighter crudes, especially Bakken crude that filled the 72 tankers cars involved in Lac-Megantic and six fiery accidents since then.
“That’s a lot of cars and that’s too many derailments, in my opinion, in a short period of time,” Raitt told CBC News. “We need to have the Transportation Safety Board tell us what happened there.”
Raitt confirmed that her government is concerned about the nature of the two CN Rail accidents and wants the railway to appear before a House of Commons committee to explain how the derailments and explosions occurred.
“We don’t know what caused this derailment yet, but we expect that the company will fully cooperate with the Transportation Safety Board in its investigation,” Raitt told a Canadian House of Commons transport committee.
CN said it is cooperating with investigators and is ready to appear before legislators.
Broadening concerns
Since the mid-2013 accident at Lac-Megantic, regulators have conducted a series of probes in the United States and Canada.
A number of risk-mitigation measures have been introduced, including requirements for shippers to more properly classify their dangerous goods.
Canada has also stepped up inspections to ensure that the classification of crude oil cargoes matches the contents.
Dennis Sutton, executive director of the Crude Oil Quality Association, told the Globe and Mail the fact that oil sands crude was involved in the CN Rail accidents “certainly broadens our concerns” beyond the Bakken formation.
He said that despite what some people in the industry probably believe, the problem of explosions and fires is not unique to Bakken crude.
In its final report on Lac-Megantic, Canada’s TSB avoided pinning the blame on the composition of the Bakken crude, although it noted that the shippers on that train made no attempt to determine the flashpoint of the shipment.
A spokesman for the TSB said investigators are still examining the CN Rail tank cars and tracks and collecting oil samples for testing.
Tougher standards
On March 11, the Canadian government proposed new, tougher standards for rail cars carrying crude, including thicker steel walls, thermal protection, full shields at each end of cars and more protection over valves by 2025.
The objective is to help cars better withstand a derailment and collision, while limiting the volume of crude that could spill and ignite.
The government had previously required the phasing out of older-model DOT-111 cars - starting with 5,000 units - and replacing them with the stronger CP-1232 model.
The latest proposal requires shippers to further upgrade the cars, this time to replace CP-1232 cars with another version labelled TC-117, which would be used on all trains hauling flammable goods.
Transport Canada also said it will introduce new braking systems for some trains.
CN and Canadian Pacific Railway said they welcomed the new rules, while the Railway Association of Canada said that once fully implemented the standards will make it safer to ship dangerous goods.
The announcement follows comments earlier in March by CP Chief Executive Officer Hunter Harrison that his company would like the right to reject some dangerous goods on certain routes because of soaring insurance liability costs and possible dangers to the public.
A spokeswoman for Raitt said the government has no plans to change the “common carrier” obligations that require railways to carry all legal goods.
Adding to the succession of worries over the safety of using rail to move petroleum products, CN reported March 11 that some cargo spilled when 13 cars derailed in southern Manitoba, 30 miles east of Brandon, the province’s second largest city.
The company said the cars were carrying feedstock to a refinery, but reported that the product did not enter any waterway.
