Recently Shelved Projects

Flashback! from 2013:

Tue Aug 20, 2013 12:07am EDT via Reuters

Oil-by-rail pioneer U.S. Development Group cashing up, not out

NEW YORK | BY JONATHAN LEFF

Emboldened by the early success, the company ramped up its 

investments in the crude-by-rail business, reckoning - wrongly - that 

the best bet would be in Canada, where producers were grappling 

with how to ship viscous oil sands by pipeline.

"The timing was not right. They were all about Keystone and 

pipeline growth," he said of early talks with producers.

Instead, USD built a receiving terminal in St. James, Louisiana, 

the trading point for the Gulf Coast's main light, sweet crude, 

eventually expanding it to one of the country's biggest, capable of 

unloading two unit trains at 130,000 bpd.

It went on to build up a stake in nearly every major shale play, 

including North Dakota, where it helped to break BNSF's early 

advantage, and Colorado's Niobrara and Texas' Eagle Ford.



It was a good bet because the volume of U.S. crude oil shipped by 

rail has surged from next to nothing in 2010 to as much as 750,000 

barrels per day (bpd), equivalent to about a tenth of the country's 

production. Total U.S. oil production has reached the highest in 

over two decades.

FULL STEAM AHEAD

The company's latest foray is into the crude-by-rail business 

in Hardisty, Alberta, where together with Gibson Energy Inc 
(GEI.TO)  USD will build one of three terminals capable of 
handling unit trains. 

USD is the company that is proposing a 

Crude Oil terminal near Bowerman Basin.

USD Group withdraws proposal to expand Alberta oil-by-rail facility

BY JOHN COTTER, THE CANADIAN PRESS 

FEBRUARY 1, 2016

(ed note: I am unable to copy any of the 

article, so click for the details.)

Planned US coal ports: 

a swift trip from vital 

to irrelevant

10th February 2016

via Wood Magazine  by Andy Roberts

Three short years ago, the conventional wisdom was both that growing thermal coal demand in Asia couldn’t be met by regional suppliers, and that low-cost coal from the US would fill the breech. Several new coal ports, notably in Oregon and Washington, were already in the early stages of permit approval, hoping to help fill this void.

 The intervening three years have made clear what a miscalculation this was. Opposition to the major projects – Gateway Pacific, Millennium and Port Morrow – has been effective, led by a broad coalition of environmental groups, tribal nations and local and national governments . But as challenging  as this was for port developers, the larger problem has been economic.

Bad News, for Coal & Crude

Coal miner by Jan Truter used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Federal Coal Sales Moratorium Shakes Industry Stronghold

• By MEAD GRUVER AND MATTHEW BROWN, ASSOCIATED PRESS via ABC News

GILLETTE, Wyo. — Feb 1, 2016, 9:43 AM ET  

Signs of economic troubles first appeared a few years ago, when drilling for natural gas trapped in water-saturated coal seams went bust. Thousands of wells were idled as companies shifted focus to fracking for gas in Texas and the Northeast.Then last year, mining company Alpha Natural Resources filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Industry giant Arch Coal Inc. followed in early January. Each company has two major mines in Wyoming. Arch's Black Thunder mine ranks among the largest in the world.
Less than a week after the Arch bankruptcy came the Obama administration moratorium on new coal lease sales.

-----------------
"All these rules and regulations just make it harder to conduct business," said Susan Doop, owner of a local alternative therapy business. "Everything he (Obama) does to make it more costly to do business makes it harder. People are losing their jobs."
Doop and her husband, Marlin, who owns an auto body shop, already are seeing the changes. He just spent three weeks focused exclusively on repairing a Ford Super Duty pickup truck from a coal mine that had a crushed cab and bent frame.
A $15,000 check he got from Arch the same week the company filed for bankruptcy bounced. He said he can't afford health insurance and was going to use the money to pay for another round of treatments for advanced liver and colon cancer.

FIVE STORIES TO WATCH IN THE ARCH COAL BANKRUPTCY

Big executive bonuses; shafting workers and the environment; and more. Via Sightline

In case you somehow missed the news, Arch Coal, North America’s second largest coal company, filed for bankruptcy a few weeks back. Arch’s management hopes to use bankruptcy protection to shed $4.5 billion in debt—money that Arch borrowed from investors near the peak of the coal market, but that the company can’t pay back now that coal prices have tumbled.
To anyone paying attention, Arch’s insolvency came as no surprise. The company hadmissed a bond interest payment in mid-December after unsuccessful negotiations with creditors. Besides, coal industry bankruptcies are a dime a dozen at this point: Alpha Natural Resources, the #4 coal company in the US, declared bankruptcy in August; Walter Energy declared itself insolvent back in July; and Patriot Coal filed for Chapter 11 protection in October, its second filing since 2012. All told, nearly 50 US coal mining companies have filed for bankruptcy protection since the beginning of 2012.
Arch’s bankruptcy obviously highlights the dire state of the industry’s finances. But it also raises important questions about public policy, fiscal responsibility, and the fate of the coal industry itself. 

Here are the top five stories that I’m going to keep my eye on as the Arch Coal bankruptcy unfolds. Read the article here 

As Coal topples, Crude also falters

Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

The Syncrude oil sands extraction facility near the town of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta.

Once Unstoppable, Tar Sands
Now Battered from All Sides

Canada’s tar sands industry is in crisis as oil prices plummet, pipeline projects are killed, and new governments in Alberta and Ottawa vow less reliance on this highly polluting energy source. Is this the beginning of the end for the tar sands juggernaut?
by Ed Struzik via Environment360

In the summer of 2014, when oil was selling for $114 per barrel, Alberta’s tar sands industry was still confidently standing by earlier predictions that it would nearly triple production by 2035. Companies such as Suncor, Statoil, Syncrude, Royal Dutch Shell, and Imperial Oil Ltd. were investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new projects to mine the thick, highly polluting bitumen.
Eyeing this oil boom, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was certain that the Keystone XL pipeline — “a no-brainer” in his words — would be built, with or without President Barack Obama’s approval. Keystone, which would carry tar sands crude from Alberta to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico, was critical if bitumen from new tar sands projects was going to find a way to market.
What a difference 18 months makes. The price of oil today has plummeted to around $30 a barrel, well below the break-even point for tar sands producers, and the value of the Canadian dollar has fallen sharply. President Obama killed the Keystone XL project in November, and staunch opposition has so far halted efforts to build pipelines that would carry tar sands crude to Canada’s Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
The industry is suddenly weathering a perfect storm that analysts say has significantly altered its prospects.

Could Low Oil Prices Help Usher in a New Era?
Mark Trahant 1/27/16 Via Indian Country Today

Here is the problem: If the pipeline is built and the train system is upgraded there will be too much transportation capacity at current oil prices. So the railroad companies will have to seek out new customers. Or, as Sightline said, while “the projects are largely designed to transport and handle light shale oil from the Bakken oil formation in North Dakota … the infrastructure could also be used to export heavy Canadian oil.”
The idea of how much capacity — especially given the price of oil — is the wild card in any transportation scheme. Many projects were designed when oil prices were higher than $75 a barrel instead of around $30. Oil is a commodity and traded on international markets. That means it’s subject to the up and down of supply and demand. Currently there is far more oil supply than demand. A report by the International Energy Agency says last year “saw one of the highest volume increases in global oil demand this century, we have long believed that this could not be repeated in 2016. But, with crude oil prices plunging below $30/bbl, must we expect some boost to the rate of growth in 2016? Unfortunately, the New Year has been awash with pessimism about economic growth.”
And that means less economic growth — and less oil consumption. The IEA says that when Iran is fully online selling oil, and if other oil exporting countries maintain current production levels, the demand could exceed 1.5 million barrels a day and “unless something changes, the oil market could drown in over-supply.” So yes prices could go lower.

New Regulations Inspire Little Confidence, Disasters Expected to Continue

 

CSX trains burns after derailment in WVA.

New Oil Train Rules Get Mixed Reactions In Northwest

“We'll continue to see derailments and spills even with these new rules in place"

By Tony Schick    Jefferson Public Radio  5/01/15

Oil trains are getting stronger tank cars, better brakes, slower speed limits and possibly new routes. Many in the Northwest say that’s still not enough.

Federal transportation regulators in the U.S. and Canada released a sweeping set of final rules Friday with more stringent requirements for railroads hauling flammable liquids, including crude oil and ethanol. The rules come one day after Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and four of their Democratic colleagues introduced a wide-ranging bill intended to bolster oil train safety, including a fee on oil shipments made in old, puncture-prone tank cars.

“It’s a meaningful step but it doesn’t do enough,” Wyden said Friday of the federal rule. “It doesn’t move quickly enough to secure Oregon communities from the risk of flammable oil trains.”...

...Environmentalists, rail workers and safety experts called the rule a positive step, but each pointed out what they think are significant safety gaps.

Jared Margolis, a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity, said he thinks the speed limits are too high and the phase-out of old tank cars too dragged out.

The Center for Biological Diversity has previously sued to prevent oil trains in older tank cars from moving through parts of the Northwest, like the Columbia River Gorge.
 
“We'll continue to see derailments and spills even with these new rules in place,” Margolis said.....   more here

Fee Proposed on Rail Cars That Haul Oil, Other Flammables 

 

05/01/2015     Matthew Brown, AP

 

U.S. senators from six states on Thursday proposed that the government charge companies a special fee to ship oil, ethanol and other flammable liquids in older railroad tank cars that have been involved in fiery explosions.

The fee would start at $175 and increase to $1,400 per car by 2018. It would raise an estimated $600 million to train first responders, clean up spills and relocate rail tracks around populated areas.

The proposal would be paired with tax breaks for upgrades to newer tank cars, so they can better withstand derailments. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon told The Associated Press the intent is to offer "market-based" incentives for companies to improve safety.....    more here

10 Recent Oil Train Crashes in the US and Canada

 

Benicia Independent (from The Associated Press)   May 1, 2015     h/t Roger Straw

See also a listing on SafeBenicia.org, somewhat out of date but with more detail and photos.  

Sweeping regulations to boost the safety of trains transporting crude oil, ethanol and other flammable liquids were announced Friday by U.S. and Canadian officials. The long-awaited regulations are a response to a series of oil train accidents in both countries over the last few years that have resulted in spectacular fires that burned for days.

Here are some of those accidents:    here