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Page added on March 18, 2014
New York, Bakken and crude oil by rail: where is the love?
The crude-by-rail industry is not feeling so much of the “love” in New York’s “I Love New York” slogan these days.
Governor Cuomo has put a target on the backs of those moving Bakken oil in particular, which some recent tests have shown has the volatility of gasoline. That spells trouble for the crude, more of which is moving through the New York capital of Albany by rail and then barged down the Hudson River to East Coast refiners. It is access to more domestic crudes that has kept those plants open after pricey imports almost shuttered them a few years ago.
New York’s crude-by-rail scrutiny is taking the form of a so-called “inspection blitz” of rail yards and terminals, along with a moratorium that has created uncertainty around projects to bring in more heavy oil.
Granted, New York has reason to be concerned after several recent derailments in the state and the still-shocking memory of the deadly Lac Megantic explosion in Quebec.
Cuomo says he doesn’t want to take any chances. So far, the state has found tank car issues such as defective wheels and brake shoes, as well as track problems. The findings, which will also look at barging of crude, will be part of a report due to the governor’s office by April 30.
In a one-two punch, Albany County recently put a moratorium in place that could hold up Global Partners’ plans to move more discounted heavy oil through the hub. The company, which already moves light, sweet Bakken through its facilities, wants to install boilers to heat heavier crude. But Albany County wants to ban “construction or expansion of any facility involved in the heating, transport or storage” of crude until public health implications are “better understood.”
Global, which has not commented to Platts about the potential monkey wrench, has unleashed “a cadre of lawyers” to defend itself, according to a statement from Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy.
“We will not back down and we will not let Big Oil and its hordes of lawyers use hollow threats to stop us and the people from ensuring environmental justice in Albany County,” said McCoy.
“Interesting, and perhaps most telling, nowhere do Global’s lawyers deny that the shipment and processing of high volumes of crude oil present real and substantial public health and safety risk,” he said.
Where is the love?
6 Comments on "New York, Bakken and crude oil by rail: where is the love?"
rockman on Tue, 18th Mar 2014 9:32 pm
““We will not back down and we will not let Big Oil and its hordes of lawyers use hollow threats to stop us…” Of course not: that’s why Dog created New Jersey and PA. I notice NY doesn’t seem to have a problem with refined products being shipped in by rail. Or NG produced from frac’d wells…as long as the wells are in other states.
Northwest Resident on Tue, 18th Mar 2014 10:04 pm
They hate the oil but they love the Big Macs and super-sized burritos that oil/gas enables them to drive to get. They want to have their cake and eat it too — who can blame them for that?! WTF, it IS the American Way. I am personally very glad that here in the NW we are sitting on top of just recently (geologically speaking) solidified magma, and there is no fossil fuel under our fertile soil whatsoever. If they were fracking down the road from me, I would hate it too — just like I hate it when they clear-cut the forests in large swaths of my favorite mountains around here. But, I do live in a stick-frame house built from wood, so how can I complain without being a hypocrite? Not that I wouldn’t rather be living in stone and concrete lined Hobbit Hole if only that was socially acceptable…
synapsid on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 1:10 am
NR,
Do you remember why Black Diamond is named Black Diamond, here west of the Cascades? There’s an enormous open-pit coal mine there, fenced all round so you don’t see it. I believe it’s inactive now; I expect the coal used to go to the coal-fired power plant in Centralia which recently had its license extended to 2025 or thereabouts. The State is moving toward no use of coal and reduction in use of fossil fuels, and all know it will take a while.
East of Seattle, across Lake Washington, are unnumbered abandoned coal diggings on Cougar Mountain. They’re mostly unmapped, and get in the news when one collapses beneath someone’s home. Coal used to be an important mineral product in Washington. And the Rattlesnake Hills, east of the mountains on the Columbia Plateau, used to supply the local communities with natural gas from the anticline. Too, Roslyn and Cle Elum, east of the Cascades and just north of I-5, are old coal-mining towns.
Your point stands, of course: this part of the country is not prime fossil-fuel habitat. But Washington State refines up a storm! Bakken oil comes in via rail to our refineries (five of ’em, counting a small one in Tacoma) and oil-sands oil through the TransMountain pipeline into the big refineries at Anacortes and Cherry Point.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 2:39 am
synapsid — Thanks for making me less ignorant. In all my years living in the Portland metro area (since 1989 minus a few years abroad), and sucking up news from multiple sources daily, I never heard of coal mines in Washington or Oregon. And they must keep the refining under wraps too. Now I’m intensely curious about the geological history that resulted in those coal deposits. I’ll look it up and learn. Thanks!
rockman on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 11:29 am
NR – watch out…we’re coming for you next: Reports of burning tap water and contaminated aquifers have followed the natural gas industry to the Pacific Northwest, where some drilling could involve the controversial practice of “hydraulic fracturing.” The gas boom has been most intense in about 30 states — from New Mexico and Wyoming in the West to New York and Pennsylvania in the East.
A closer look at gas well activity in Idaho, Oregon and Washington: But what about the Pacific Northwest? Gas is trapped underground in Idaho, Oregon and Washington, too. Efforts to tap more of the Northwest’s natural gas are just getting underway. Current production is a tiny fraction of what states in Appalachia, the Rockies, and other regions are pumping out. But there are signs this natural gas rush isn’t completely passing by the Northwest.
In western Idaho’s Payette County, seven gas wells are ready to produce once a pipeline and processing facility come on line. And drilling that employed hydraulic fracturing was undertaken on at least nine wells since 2005 near Oregon’s southern coast.
Bridge wouldn’t be the first company to frack in the Northwest. A few years ago, a now-defunct Canadian company hired Halliburton Services to inject a pressurized nitrogen mix into coal bed wells in Coos County, Oregon.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 3:02 pm
rockman — Thanks for the warning! Time to mobilize all the retired tree hugging hippies and suit back up into our old bell bottom pants and tie dye t-shirts from the 60’s for one last charge of the Light Brigade, I guess. I can still (almost) fit into my pants from way back then, but most of us will have a little more “squeezing into” to do. It ain’t gonna be a pretty sight, that’s for sure.