Posted on 03/05/2015 5:21:27 AM PST by thackney
Despite falling oil prices, production cutbacks and persistent safety concerns, rail officials plan to continue shipping millions of gallons of volatile crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota through Texas, according to updated records provided by state officials on Wednesday.
Average weekly volumes reflect little change from a first batch of disclosures released last week. Those disclosures, dated last summer, provided a limited view of forecasted shipments.
Volumes in Harris County remain the highest, an average topping out at six million gallons a week.
Federal emergency orders — approved last spring after a series of fiery derailments involving Bakken crude — require railroad companies to warn state public safety officials of shipments exceeding a one-million gallon threshold. BNSF Railways made the most recent disclosures to state officials. Its new forecasts of average weekly figures came attached to documents dated in February.
The Texas Department of Public Safety fought for six months to avoid providing the records to the Houston Chronicle. Ordered by the state attorney general to comply with a request made under the state open records law, the department initially disclosed only documents dated to the beginning of the six-month fight. The new records emerged in response to a follow-up request for the most recent information.
< /sarc>
My brother in law told me that this oil I’d so good that it starts separating into it components during shipment.
Seems like it would be highly coveted for refining.
Exactly on point - people would put up barricades across the rails outside their towns if they had full knowledge of what those CHEM placards mean. I specifically remember having the thought pass through my mind at the moment of the OKC bombing that it was a propane tanker since the Santa Fe main line passed on the east side of downtown. I was at work about 1.5 miles north of downtown.
And yet, we can’t seem to build new pipelines in this country. < smh>
We build lots of pipelines. Just not one specific border crossing.
Thanks Obama.
Do you know the economics of building a small refinery to take out the volatiles prior to placing on railway cars?
That is one solution to keep the explosion risk down.
Most of the Bakken crude I saw was over 40 deg API.
All unconventionals have lighter crudes with volatiles as that is simply the only type of crude that can be produced in the tite rock, and a lot of it like in the Eagleford is not crude at all but liquids that existed as gas in the ground.
It does not take a refinery. North Dakota has already put the rule in place to make this happen. I believe it will take effect by the end of the month or so.
Pending North Dakota oil rules may have limited W. Virginia disaster
http://bakken.com/news/id/233179/pending-north-dakota-oil-rules-may-have-limited-w-virginia-disaster/
The article above calls it a filter but I believe it is more in the line of a separator/stablizer.
North Dakota to Reduce Volatility of Bakken Crude-By-Rail
http://www.planetizen.com/node/72791
I believe this is what was approved, if you want the legalize:
IN THE MATTER OF A HEARING CALLED ON
A MOTION OF THE COMMISSION TO
CONSIDER AMENDING THE BAKKEN,
BAKKEN/THREE FORKS, THREE FORKS,
AND/OR SANISH POOL FIELD RULES TO
ESTABLISH OIL CONDITIONING STANDARDS
AND/OR IMPOSE SUCH PROVISIONS AS
DEEMED APPROPRIATE TO IMPROVE THE
TRANSPORTATION SAFETY AND
MARKETABILITY OF CRUDE OIL.
https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/Approved-or25417.pdf
May 10, 2013 - MAKOTI, N.D. — The Three Affiliated Tribes have broken ground for a $450 million oil refinery on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in northwestern North Dakota. The Thunder ... It will create as many as 100 full-time jobs.
The tribes have wanted to use a 469-acre piece of land near Makoti to build the refinery and produce feed for a buffalo herd. Plans call for the refinery to be built on a 190-acre portion of the land. The other land will be used for the buffalo.
Tribal members and others at the event praised Tribal Chairman Tex “Red Tipped Arrow” Hall for having the vision to pursue a refinery, a plan that began 10 years ago before the Bakken oil boom. Initially the proposal called for refining Canadian tar sands, but in 2008 the plans switched to refine the tribe’s own Bakken crude.
During the celebration, Hall reflected about his ancestors.
“We grew up poor. We were lucky if we had a pair of clean overalls,” Hall said. “But our parents made sure we went to school and got educated. They did the best they could for us. They didn’t know we’d have this oil and gas resource, but now we do. It’s our responsibility to manage it and we are.”
Three Affiliated Tribes officials are talking to other tribes about inter-tribe commerce agreements to distribute diesel from its refinery. Representatives from several tribes, including the Spokane Tribe of Indians, attended the event and are interested in distributing the diesel.
- See more at: http://www.prairiebizmag.com/event/article/id/14552/#sthash.3HLh0wf3.dpuf
Three Affiliated Tribes to revise refinery project plan
http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/614988/Three-Affiliated-Tribes-to—revise-refinery-project-plan.html?nav=5010
November 27, 2014
he Three Affiliated Tribes will be revising their plan for their refinery project near Makoti on the Fort Berthold Reservation.
Tribal chairman Mark Fox said the business council and those involved in the refinery development will be working on how they will move forward on the project.
Work at the refinery has been at a standstill right now, Fox said. He said some procedural matters relative to environmental impacts had to be dealt with along with some other items.
...The ground breaking marked more than 10 years of work since the tribes first started making plans for a refinery for the Fort Berthold Reservation. Because of the various federal permits and other approvals the tribes are required to obtain, the project had been delayed....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/27/tribes-to-revamp-plans-for-proposed-oil-refinery/
Fox said the group needs to define exactly what will be built, what will be produced and how they are going to manage and run it. That information will be correlated with a finance package, the Minot Daily News reported.
“Even though we know we’re building it and we’re doing some things to prepare for that with the berm, other dirt work and other things that have been done, those will all fit in with what I’ll call our revised plan for development,” Fox said.
...thanks for the update....I guess the EPA is in on the action now.....expect fuuuuuurther delays.
thanks. I suspect the economics is thin and is justifiable only with government intrusion.
This is why private leases have seen a decrease in the amount of gas flared at the wellsite vs. recovered for market, for instance, and the Federal leases have actually seen an increase in the amount of gas flared. The gas is produced as a byproduct of oil production, and worth only a fraction of the value of the oil.
It is more complex on Federal Land to obtain permits to emplace the feeder pipelines to take the gas to processing facilities because of the different agencies involved.
It appears, some have mixed in NGLs, prior to shipment, maybe...
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