Trump eyes rail for LNG transport
Decision to loosen restrictions expected early next year
WASHINGTON — Liquefied natural gas could soon move around the country by rail as the Trump administration moves to loosen restrictions on transporting LNG in an effort to further boost to the nation’s energy sector.
The Department of Transportation has proposed allowing railroads to begin transporting LNG in cryogenic tanker cars, which can maintain temperatures of less than minus 300 degrees and are used to move chemicals such as ammonia and ethylene. A final decision is expected early next year.
The railroad could offer an enticing alternative to natural gas customers as pipeline projects are under increasing scrutiny over natural gas’s contribution to climate change, with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blocking construction of new pipelines running through his state and into New England. At the same time, the rush to develop oil fields in West Texas — far from the nation’s pipeline network — has resulted in many drillers flaring the natural gas that is a byproduct of crude production.
“Pipelines are still the most optimal way to transport gas, but LNG by rail can be a great way to move gas into places with pipeline constraints, like the Northeast and potentially out of the Permian Basin,” said Katie Ehly, senior policy adviser at the trade group Natural Gas Supply Association. “It just makes sense.”
But tanker cars full of flammable natural gas traveling through American cities and towns represent a significant safety risk, the scale of which was evidenced six years ago when an oil train derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, setting off a massive explosion that killed more than 40 people.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, however, maintains it has stud
ied the risks and decided they are manageable.
“This major rule will establish a safe, reliable and durable mode of transportation for LNG, while substantially increasing economic benefits and our nation’s energy competitiveness in the global market,” PHMSA Administrator Skip Elliott said in a statement.
But some are questioning the thoroughness with which the administration has approached its review of longtime restrictions placed on the transport of liquefied natural gas.
In August, the environmental group Earthjustice, representing a coalition of activist groups, warned that the administration has not done enough to establish that LNG could be moved safely by rail.
Under special permits, railroads in Florida and Alaska have been allowed to move small quantities of LNG through pilot projects — using cryogenic containers placed on flat-bed rail cars, as opposed to traditional tanker cars. But the administration has yet to release any data from those projects to prove that moving LNG by rail is safe, said Fred Millar, an independent consultant formerly of the environmental group Friends of the Earth.
“The environmental assessment was a flimsy 23-page document, and they can say no disaster yet after these pilot projects,” he said. “Now we’re in the Trump era, industry is going in and getting everything it can.”
The American Association of Railroads, a trade group, did not respond to requests for comment.
The transportation of LNG by rail car is already allowed in Canada and Japan. The oil company Japan Petroleum Exploration has moved LNG by cryogenic containers loaded onto trains for close to two decades, to get natural gas to areas where pipelines do not reach.
In Texas, some are already looking at a similar approach.
Énestas, a Mexican company with offices in Houston, uses trucks to transport natural gas from South Texas to clients in Mexico not located near pipelines. But with the Trump administration moving ahead on allowing LNG shipments by rail, the company is looking into the feasibility of using trains, said Gregory Pilkinton, vice president of sales and business development at Énestas.
“We’re following it closely,” he said. “We move a significant volume of LNG across to Mexico, and if we could do it more economically by rail, that would be fantastic.”