Privacy rules obscure oil-by-rail volumes in B.C.
Alberta buying hundreds of tanker cars but it’s unclear where they’ll be used
Construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is stalled and pressure is mounting to move more crude oil by rail, yet it is increasingly difficult to find out whether any increased railway shipments would head to the West Coast.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said on Tuesday that her province was close to concluding a deal to buy tanker cars that could be used to ship oil as a stop gap measure while new pipelines remain on hold.
However, statistics on the transportation of petroleum products by rail in B.C. that used to be available through Transport Canada are no longer reported for competitive reasons, according to the agency.
There is limited infrastructure for handling oil deliveries by rail in Metro Vancouver, especially for export.
The Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby, Metro Vancouver’s only oil export terminal, “does not have the ability to accommodate oil by rails shipments today and we have no plans at this time,” to do so, according to an unattributed statement from the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project office.
“Our focus is on the expansion of our pipeline,” according to the statement, sent in response to Postmedia questions on the topic.
CP Rail, however, cites its partnership with other railways that have access to the Pacific Northwest for the movement of refined petroleum products as a selling point in its investor fact book.
“Our connectivity to several rail interline partners gives us strong and long-term exposure to refineries and export facilities in the Pacific Northwest, the Gulf Coast and the Northeast U.S.,” CP says in the fact book, but doesn’t specify what products it carries or what amounts.
CP spokeswoman Salem Woodrow declined to answer follow up questions.
Railway safety is under the spotlight this week with a major derailment Monday on CP’s mainline near Field that killed three railway employees and sent 40 to 60 grainladen cars crashing off the steep section of track.
A Transport Canada spokeswoman, Sau Sau Liu, said by email that it would be inappropriate to speculate on the department in terms of changes in safety requirements while the Transportation Safety Board investigates the crash.
Liu wrote that Transport Canada has sent five of its own inspectors to the site to monitor events and gather information. Transportation Minister Marc Garneau’s office has also appointed an observer to keep the department informed of developments in the TSB investigation
Oil-by-rail transport increased in 2015 in B.C. at the same time railways were experiencing growth in shipments mainly to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Transport Canada reported that 3,133 carloads of crude oil were shipped to B.C. over the first nine months of 2014, the equivalent of approximately 8,227 barrels a day, assuming a typical rail car volume of 113,979 litres.
That is a small amount compared with the 300,000-barrels-a-day capacity of the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline, which serves the Westridge Marine Terminal and oil refineries in Burnaby and Washington state.
And it is a fraction of the 29,470 carloads of refined petroleum products, including diesel, gasoline and propane, transported by rail in B.C. during the same period of 2014.
The amounts were influenced by Chevron Canada’s decision to build, in 2013, a rail off-loading facility at its Burnaby oil refinery to take about 10 carloads of crude a day to supplement feedstock delivered on the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
Alberta-based Parkland Fuel Corp. bought the Burnaby refinery in 2017, along with Chevron’s Lower Mainland fuel distribution network. The company did not respond to Postmedia questions about its shipments of oil by rail to that facility now.
The amount of crude oil carried by rail in 2015 increased compared with previous five years from just six carloads in 2009 to 3,381 carloads in all of 2013, which was the equivalent of about 6,640 barrels a day.
Nationally, over the first 11 months of 2018, shipments of oil by rail reached 195,997 carloads for all of Canada, the equivalent of about 420,700 barrels a day, according to Transport Canada.
However, because only two railways in B.C. carry oil, “Transport Canada’s Access to Information and Privacy branch is not in a position to divulge details as the information is commercially sensitive,” the department’s Liu said in an email.
The amount of oil transported by rail into Washington state from B.C. is negligible, according to Janet Matkin, spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Transportation, though the department doesn’t have exact numbers.
A spokesman for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway spokesman, Gus Melonas, said the railway does transship some oil from B.C. from CN Rail for delivery in the Pacific Northwest, but the company doesn’t disclose destinations.
A CN Rail spokesman, Jonathan Abecassis, said CN transships a small amount of oil through Western Canada but the “vast majority ” of its shipments are into the U.S. to the Gulf Coast because that is where the refining capacity is to handle the heavy bitumen produced in Alberta’s oilsands.