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Oil on the Tracks INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS & EDITORS CONFERENCE RUSSELL GOLD // JUNE 5 2015
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Oil on the TracksINVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS & EDITORS CONFERENCE
RUSSELL GOLD // JUNE 5 2015
Casselton, N.D. // Dec. 2013
https://youtu.be/2ai08xm7T20
Tools used: YouTube, ruler & friend
Q: Why is North Dakota Crude Oil Exploding?
We found a data source for vapor pressure at the Capline Pipeline website.
Then we scraped all the data and put it in an Excel file.
A: It’s the combustible gasesFeb 23 WSJ :
“Crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken Shale formation contains several times the combustible gases as oil from elsewhere, a Wall Street Journal analysis found, raising new questions about the safety of shipping such crude by rail across the U.S.
“Federal investigators are trying to determine whether such vapors are responsible for recent extraordinary explosions of oil-filled railcars, including one that killed several dozen people in Canada last summer.”
Source: Dakota Plains Holding Co. presentation in 2014, available on their website
Albany?
Mapping the New Energy Landscape Pt. 1
The Rise of a New, More Volatile “Ultralight” Crude
Not all crudes are the same.
Light and “ultralight” crudes have more gases (ethanes, butanes, etc.) entrained in them. This raises their RVP and makes them more volatile.
“The federal government says 96% of the growth in production since 2011 is of light and ultralight oil and that is where growth will continue.” – WSJ 6/24/14 (Sider & Friedman)
How much oil is moving by rail?
Annual and Quarterly Freight Commodity Statistics (QCS)
Surface Transportation Board…
But now it’s easy…
The federal government now tracks: http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/transportation
Jan-2010
Mar-2
010
May-2
010
Jul-2010
Sep-2010
Nov-2010
Jan-2011
Mar-2
011
May-2
011
Jul-2011
Sep-2011
Nov-2011
Jan-2012
Mar-2
012
May-2
012
Jul-2012
Sep-2012
Nov-2012
Jan-2013
Mar-2
013
May-2
013
Jul-2013
Sep-2013
Nov-2013
Jan-2014
Mar-2
014
May-2
014
Jul-2014
Sep-2014
Nov-2014
Jan-2015
Mar-2
0150
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
Crude by Rail volume (in thousand barrels/month)
The math of crude by rail:1.125 million barrels a day (Dec. ‘14)
700 barrels/car = 1,607 car loads
Each train is ~ 100 cars – 105 cars
So 15-16 trains departing daily
Or, about one every 90 minutes
Even at today’s lower level of 990,000 barrels/day – still 13-14 crude trains/day
“When energy companies started extracting oil from shale formations in South Texas a few years ago, they invested hundreds of millions of dollars to make the volatile crude safer to handle.
“In North Dakota's Bakken Shale oil field, nobody installed the necessary equipment. The result is that the second-fastest growing source of crude in the U.S. is producing oil that pipelines often would reject as too dangerous to transport.”
To Stabilize or Not to Stabilize
Mapping Crude by Rail Pt. II Find your local SERC: http://www2.epa.gov/epcra/state-emergency-response-commissions-contacts
Goodbye, Jersey City“This isn’t a structural fire that we can knock down in an hour or two,” he said. “This is something we’d be dealing with for days.” -- Jordan Zaretsky, a fire battalion chief in nearby Teaneck, N.J.
