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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,897 posts)
Wed Jan 8, 2014, 10:27 AM Jan 2014

Crude-Oil Impurities Are Probed in Rail Blasts

Hat tip: commenter "Underdog," in a comment to the CBC article about the derailment in New Brunswick:

CN train carrying crude oil derailed, on fire near Plaster Rock
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/cn-train-carrying-crude-oil-derailed-on-fire-near-plaster-rock-1.2487977

Underdog

@BriGuyPEI - Careful with that wish for pipelines, they're made of steel, just like rail cars. Hint- here's a snippet from a WSJ article, about why Bakken crude is linked to all the explosions.

"Another possibility is that impurities are being introduced during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That process involves pumping chemicals or other additives along with water and sand into a well to free more fossil fuels. One such additive is hydrochloric acid, a highly caustic material, which federal investigators suspect could be corroding the inside of rail tank cars, weakening them. Oil from fracked wells can also be laced with benzene and other volatile and highly flammable organic compounds."


Google found the Wall Street Journal. article right away.

Crude-Oil Impurities Are Probed in Rail Blasts
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303640604579294794222692778

Fiery Accidents Attract Scrutiny From Regulators, Industry

By Russell Gold and Lynn Cook
Jan. 1, 2014 8:13 p.m. ET

After three fiery accidents involving trains carrying crude oil out of North Dakota's Bakken Shale, regulators and industry officials are trying to figure out why the oil is exploding. ... Crude is flammable, but before being refined into products such as gasoline it is rarely implicated in explosions.

Yet earlier this week, when a BNSF Railway Co. train hauling 104 tank cars filled with Bakken crude struck another train, some of the cars exploded one after the other, releasing fireballs that blazed several stories above the frozen prairie.

"Crude oil doesn't explode like that," said Matthew Goitia, chief executive of Peaker Energy Group LLC, a Houston company that is developing crude-by-rail terminals.

The blast in Casselton, N.D., 25 miles west of Fargo, is just the latest explosion involving crude pumped out of the Bakken. Federal investigators and railroad and energy-company officials are probing whether additives to the oil or mislabeling of the liquid contributed to the series of explosions.
....

—Betsy Morris and Ben Kesling contributed to this article.

Write to Russell Gold at [email protected] and Lynn Cook at [email protected]


The derailment in New Brunswick is covered at DU in LBN:

Train Carrying Oil Derails, Catches Fire in New Brunswick, Canada.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014691661
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