BNSF adds new safety rules for crude oil trains

Fuel Fix ^ | March 30, 2015 | Associated Press

[thackney]

BNSF has started taking additional safety measures for crude oil shipments because of four recent high-profile derailments in the U.S. and Canada, the railroad said Monday.

Under the changes, BNSF is slowing down crude oil trains to 35 mph in cities with more than 100,000 people and increasing track inspections near waterways. The Fort Worth-based railroad also is stepping up efforts to find and repair defective wheels before they can cause derailments.

[thackney]

Excerpt for AP

[EQAndyBuzz]

Or, a pipeline can be built and Berkshire can be sued for a few billion for cleanup costs and destroying the environment with a “possibility” of causing global warming.

[txrefugee]

Warren Buffet’s killer oil trains appear to be lacking maintenance as they race through population centers. The pipelines are much safer in delivering oil, but he gives campaign money to the Democrats.

[railroader]

Or, a pipeline can be built and Berkshire can be sued for a few billion for cleanup costs and destroying the environment with a “possibility” of causing global warming.

Um...pipelines are years away from being built (if ever) that will enable North Dakota sweet crude to flow to northeastern refineries. Same for the West Coast. Some rail-barge movements to the Gulf Coast exist because they're more economical than pipelines, and pipeline capacity hasn't caught up with volume shipped. That is why rail transportation is used.

[American in Israel]

Pipelines don’t derail, and don’t pay bribes to politicians, so we don’t get a pipeline.

[railroader]

Warren Buffet’s killer oil trains appear to be lacking maintenance as they race through population centers. The pipelines are much safer in delivering oil, but he gives campaign money to the Democrats.

Freepers aren't supposed to be so uninformed.

The largest concentration of crude-by-rail shipments is from North Dakota to Northeastern refineries and distribution facilities. There is little or no pipeline capacity to facilitate the movement of crude oil between these points, thus rail transportation is used.

There are a number of reasons shippers are using rail...and why rail will continue to be used, even if more pipelines are built. But pipelines are not likely to be built for years (if every) to handle North Dakota crude to northeast refineries or the West Coast.

Also keep in mind that Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway purchased BNSF before crude oil shipments boomed. BH bought the railroad for other reasons. That his railroad was willing to provide shippers with transportation to the Gulf Coast and then to eastern connections CSXT and Norfolk Southern (via Chicago) for shipment to Northeastern markets is good business sense. And the Keystone XL pipeline has nothing to do with it.

Also keep in mind that Canadian Pacific Railway serves North Dakota's Bakken oil fields.

[DaveA37]

I’m no math wizard but as I see it, reducing the number of oil carrying rail cars per train, limiting rail speeds through populated areas plus a host of other issues designed to increase the time it takes to transport crude oil to the refineries only INCREASES the cost to produce gasoline, the same gasoline the usurper in chief wants to cost $8.00/gallon. We definitely NEED that pipeline and if Reagan were around he would say, “Mister President, approve that pipeline”.

[railroader]

Pipelines don’t derail, and don’t pay bribes to politicians, so we don’t get a pipeline.

Pipelines rupture, causing their contents to leak. This isn't pipeline vs. rail. Capacity and economics are at play here. You should be glad BNSF is taking steps to ensure safer transportation of crude oil.

[American in Israel]

I think your math is pretty good.

[railroader]

I’m no math wizard but as I see it, reducing the number of oil carrying rail cars per train, limiting rail speeds through populated areas plus a host of other issues designed to increase the time it takes to transport crude oil to the refineries only INCREASES the cost to produce gasoline, the same gasoline the usurper in chief wants to cost $8.00/gallon.

Only if BNSF and partners (CSXT and Norfolk Southern) increase freight rates, but some pricing is locked due to contracts. But increasing safety measures may save $$$ in the long run. Using alternative routings can reduce delays, even with slower speeds

We definitely NEED that pipeline and if Reagan were around he would say, “Mister President, approve that pipeline”.

And which pipeline would that be? Keystone XL isn't going to handle North Dakota crude to northeastern refineries.

[thackney]

ND certainly has some oil pipelines, just not enough.

https://ndpipelines.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/nd-crude-oil-map-march-2015.pdf

http://www.northamericashaleblog.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/86/2015/03/COLLINS-1.png

[bert]

I learned recently that the railroads of old man Cornelius Vanderbilt enabled a young John D Rockefeller to build Standard Oil

It was the railroads that permitted the growth of the oil refining industry from day one

[thackney]

At age 19, Rockefeller and a partner opened their own produce-shipping business. His combination of meticulousness and skillful analysis helped return their initial capital within their first year. The business continued to grow during the Civil War, as the war efforts meant higher grain prices and higher transportation prices.

Soon Rockefeller had a good amount of money with which to invest. He (correctly) believed railroads would become the primary means to transport agricultural products and would open up the vast western lands to eastern markets – trends that didn’t bode well for his own produce shipping. He began to look for other business ventures that could be profitable… and found a fledgling sector poised to take off: the oil industry.

However, where he and his partners entered was not in oil production, but its refining. The same railroads that would eclipse his shipping business would help launch his refining venture, as Cleveland enjoyed not the usual one rail line, but two. Transportation costs would be lower and thus his refinery products more competitive.

By the late 1860s, only five years after getting into the oil business, Rockefeller’s refining company was the largest in the world. A major reason for his success was a business model that today we call vertical integration.

Rockefeller knew that in order to keep costs down, he would have to control both the upstream and the downstream. For example, he even bought his own woodlands for lumber to make his own oil barrels, and built kilns on-site to dry the lumber and save shipping weight on its way to (his own) cooperage. His attention to cost-cutting was painstaking.

Small surprise, then, that the cost efficiencies of transporting oil via pipeline lured Rockefeller as soon as he heard about them. And he realized that if he owned enough pipelines, he could also dictate how much he paid for the oil that went into his refineries.

Standard Oil was born of this ambition in 1870, with Rockefeller as majority partner. In what’s been dubbed the “Cleveland Conquest” or the “Cleveland Massacre” (depending on your point of view), Standard Oil bought out or put under almost three-quarters of its Cleveland rivals in 1872 alone. By 1877, the company controlled some 90% of America’s refineries and pipelines.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/articles/how-rockefeller-parlayed-pipelines-billions