Bakken crude poses more fire risk: study

Alert adds to call for stronger rail cars, better labels

Crude oil produced in North America’s Bakken region may be more flammable and therefore more dangerous to ship by rail than crude from other areas, a U.S. regulator said after studying the question for four months.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced its preliminary conclusion three days after a BNSF Railway Co. train carrying oil caught fire after a collision in Casselton, North Dakota.

The North Dakota accident is the fourth major North American derailment in six months by trains transporting crude. Record volumes of oil are moving by rail as production from North Dakota and Texas have pushed U.S. output to the most since 1988 and pipeline capacity has failed to keep up.

The regulator “is reinforcing the requirement to properly test, characterize, classify, and where appropriate sufficiently degasify hazardous materials prior to and during transportation,” it said in a safety alert posted on its website.

The agency’s findings may expedite the rail industry’s push for stronger tank cars for moving crude and other hazardous materials. It strengthens calls for the petroleum industry to accurately label tank-car contents and test shipments to make sure they don’t contain gases produced in the hydraulic fracturing process.

“We believe there is sufficient cause for concern,” about whether crude shippers are properly labelling tank cars’ contents, Jeannie Shiffer, a pipeline-regulator spokes- woman, said in an email. “That is why PHMSA and FRA issued a safety advisory earlier this summer, why we are conducting Operation Classification and why we are issuing today’s safety alert.”

U.S. regulators, including the Federal Railroad Administration, began examining whether Bakken crude is more risky to move by rail following an explosion of rail cars carrying North Dakota crude in Lac Megantic, Quebec. The agencies Thursday said those inspections will continue. About three-quarters of the oil produced in North Dakota is shipped by rail.

The “implications for cost and speed of crude out of the Bakken as a result of today’s safety alert are likely to depend on the rule making” that follows, Kevin Book, managing director for research at ClearView

Energy Partners, LLC in Washington, said.

“We expect that the North Dakota accident will bring a proposal sooner rather than later.”

The Associated Press/files Rail cars are backed up in the yard after a train derailment and explosion this week in North Dakota. A study suggests crude oil from the Bakken area may be more flammable than conventional oil.