(SOURCE: Portland Press Herald - By Tom Bell)
Irving Oil has stopped shipping crude oil on railroads through Maine and has no plans to revive the practice.
The Canadian company, which operates an oil refinery in Saint John,
New Brunswick, confirmed the policy change in a June 30 email to the
Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting.
The change means there will be no more oil shipments though New
Hampshire and southern and central Maine on Pan Am Railways. In
addition, there will be no more oil shipments on the Eastern Maine
Railway, which connects with Pan Am at Mattawamkeag and continues
through Washington County to the Canadian border.
The cutback is because of global oil-supply-and-demand issues and is
not related to the fallout from the Lac-Megantic rail disaster, Mark
Sherman, Irving’s chief operating officer, told the Maine Center for
Public Interest Reporting. The U.S. demand for Canadian-produced
petroleum products has declined in the wake of an oversupply of oil from
domestic and Mideast sources.
In 2012, Maine railroads shipped 5.2 million barrels of crude oil,
but shipments declined sharply after the July 6, 2013 accident in
Lac-Megantic, Quebec, when an unattended 74-car freight train carrying
Bakken crude oil rolled and derailed, resulting in a fire and explosion
that killed 47 people.
The railroad involved in the disaster, the Montreal, Maine &
Atlantic Railway, never carried oil again and went bankrupt. Its
successor, the Central Maine & Quebec Railway, also has never
carried oil because of political opposition in Lac-Megantic.
Pan Am, whose trains travel through Portland, carried just 15,545
barrels of oil in all of 2014, according to records the company filed
with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. In 2015, Pan Am
has carried 37,128 barrels. All those shipments occurred in February,
the last month the railroad delivered oil to the Irving refinery,
according to the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting.
An official with Pan Am could not immediately be reached for comment.
John Giles, CEO of Central Maine & Quebec Railway, had been
seeking an agreement with Lac-Megantic officials to restart oil train
shipments through the Canadian town. On Tuesday, Giles said the railroad
does not need to carry oil to be profitable.
“I was never counting on moving crude oil in the first place,” Giles said.
Giles said his railroad spent $10 million to upgrade the rail line
last year and is spending $6 million this year, with about half of that
investment in Maine.
An investigation after the Lac-Megantic accident found that the
tank-car labels understated the flammability of the oil. Twenty-five
companies have offered a total of $431 million (Canadian) to settle
lawsuits arising out of the disaster. Irving Oil’s contribution is $75
million. The settlement is being considered by U.S. and Canadian courts.
Showing posts with label oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Monday, July 29, 2013
MM&A Railroad Executive Puzzled by Police Raid
Ed Burkhardt, chairman of the board of the Montreal , Maine & Atlantic Railway, says he doesn't know why police raided the company's Quebec offices on Thursday, insisting that the company has been cooperating with police and federal authorites.
"If they asked for what they wanted, we would have given it to them," he said in a telephone interview Friday.
There was no indication that the investigation has crossed the border into Maine , where Montreal , Maine & Atlantic is headquartered, or into Illinois , where its parent company, Rail World Inc., is located.
Burkhardt said he is unaware of any law enforcement agencies in the United States that may be involved in the Canadian investigation.
State and federal officials in Maine said they have not been contacted by Canadian authorities in connection with the criminal investigation by Quebec police.
Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland said his agency has not been involved to date.
U.S. Attorney for Maine Thomas E. Delahanty II said his office has not been contacted by Canadian officials.
Provincial police released few details about the raid at the railroad's offices in Farnham , Quebec , about 40 miles east of Montreal , but police Inspector Michael Forget told reporters that officials were there to gather evidence.
"Our investigators were on scene ... to find different evidence that I can't comment on," he said. "This raid was done with the help of different partners. We'll be there until we have gathered all of the evidence that we need."
It's not clear what was seized. Photos taken during the raid show police carrying away unlabeled cardboard boxes.
No arrests have been made, and Forget did not say whether any additional searches would be conducted. He said employees of MM&A were cooperative.
The criminal investigation began shortly after the derailment and is separate from an investigation by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which is looking into whether safety procedures were followed.
The Montreal , Maine & Atlantic train hauling 73 cars of crude oil was unmanned when it barreled into the small town of Lac-Megantic at more than 60 miles per hour, decimating several buildings and claiming at least 47 lives.
Cleanup is still going on and likely will continue for weeks. Colette Roy-Laroche, the mayor of Lac-Megantic, said Thursday that the railroad company has not paid the more than $4 million in cleanup costs. Roy-Laroche told Canadian media outlets that the town is considering legal action against Montreal , Maine & Atlantic .
The railroad company is also expected to face numerous lawsuits filed by survivors of those killed by the derailment. The first lawsuit was filed on Monday in Cook County , Ill. , where Montreal , Maine & Atlantic 's parent company is based.
The complainants have argued that the railway and its CEO, Ed Burkhardt, neglected safety rules in order to cut costs.
Burkhardt has laid blame on train engineer Tom Harding, alleging he "did something wrong" on the night of the crash.
Because the derailment occurred on rail lines owned by the Maine-based company, U.S. Reps. Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree have called on federal officials to conduct a thorough inspection of the tracks. Federal Railroad Adminstration officials have been in Maine for the past week doing just that.
Pingree is married to S. Donald Sussman, majority share owner of the Portland Press Herald.
Michaud and Pingree have met with both the Federal Railroad Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, but neither agency has authority to bring criminal charges.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Pan Am Violating Law by Not Reporting Oil Volume in Maine
(SOURCE: Portland Press Herald, Associated Press)
PORTLAND — One of the two rail lines over which oil is shipped through Maine is behind on reporting the volume of oil shipments to the Department of Environmental Protection.
Pan Am Railway tanker cars that carry liquefied propane are parked at the NGL Supply Terminal on West Commercial Street in Portland on Monday, July 8, 2013. DEP spokesman Jessamine Logan said Wednesday that Pan-Am Railways failed to report oil volume for April and May as required by law. The monthly reports must be submitted within 30 days.
DEP spokesman Jessamine Logan said Wednesday that Pan-Am Railways failed to report oil volume for April and May as required by law. The monthly reports must be submitted within 30 days.
The Portland Phoenix first reported on the overdue documents Wednesday.
Logan told The Associated press said the state grants leeway for vacations and illnesses that cause delays. But the April report is now more than a month overdue.
A spokeswoman for Massachusetts-based Pan-Am didn't immediately return a call.
Logan says Pan-Am and Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway are the only rail companies that regularly ship oil through Maine.
Railway at Center of Tragedy Struggling Financially
(SOURCE: Kennebec Journal, By Tom Bell tbell@mainetoday.com)
The Maine company that owns the train that derailed and exploded in the center of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, on July 6 has lost much of its freight business and is struggling financially.
Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway laid off 79 of its 179 employees Tuesday, with its work force in Maine bearing the brunt of the layoffs.
The train disaster, which killed 50 people just 10 miles from Maine's western border, has severed the company's rail lines in Maine from the rest of its network in Quebec and from national railroads that cross the continent.
Although Montreal, Maine & Atlantic's operations in Vermont are unchanged, the railroad can no longer carry oil tankers east through Maine to a refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. And it can no longer offer manufacturers east of Lac-Megantic a rail connection to the west.
"We have lost a lot of business," said Ed Burkhardt, chairman of the railroad and president of its parent company, Chicago-based Rail World Inc. "We don't need to run many trains. Revenues are way down."
He said the layoffs are a temporary measure and the railway hopes to hire the workers back once revenues rebound. "We are doing what any company would do," he said.
Burkhardt said he is unaware of the details of the layoffs and does not know how many workers were idled in Maine.
Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, a relatively small company based in Hermon, owns 512 miles of rail. It operates in Maine and Quebec and serves customers in Vermont just south of the Quebec border.
Only 19 of the railway's 80 workers in Quebec have been laid off, according to the provincial branch of the United Steel Workers Union. Two of those employees are managers.
That means 60 of the company's employees in Maine -- more than half -- have been laid off.
The railroad's problems pose a logistical challenge for its customers in Maine that need to get products to market and receive supplies.
Everett Deschenes, manager of fiber and logistics at Old Town Fuel & Fiber, said the railway can still deliver wood chips to his company's plant from suppliers in northern Maine, but the plant is now using primarily Pan Am Railways to ship its product, pulp, to customers to the west. The plant has begun using trucks for shorter hauls.
Deschenes said Pan Am Railways is offering fair rates and not taking advantage of its new rail monopoly.
Cynthia Scarano, executive vice president of Pan Am Railways, said the normally competitive railroads are now cooperating to re-route freight and make sure commerce is not interrupted.
"Everybody is working together as a group to make sure things keep moving through the state," she said.
Pan Am Railways, which has 2,000 miles of rail in New England, offers connections to the west through Albany, N.Y.
Deschenes said it's upsetting to see Maine people lose their jobs.
"I am very saddened," he said. "My boys said they were good people to work with."
The train that exploded in Lac-Megantic was carrying 72 tanker cars filled with crude oil destined for a huge refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, owned by Irving Oil Ltd.
While the route through Lac-Megantic was an important line for the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, equal amounts of western crude are being shipped from the west through southern Maine via Pan Am Railways and on Canadian National Railway tracks, according to CBC News.
Oil deliveries through southern Maine on Pan Am Railways are now expected to increase.
The St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railway, which runs trains between Portland and Ste. Rosalie, Quebec, where it connects with the Canadian National Railway, has offered help re-routing Montreal, Maine & Atlantic trains, said St. Lawrence & Atlantic's president, Mario Brault.
One of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic's biggest customers is Lac-Megantic's largest employer, Tafisa Canada Inc., which manufactures particle board and thermofused melamine panels.
The factory, which employs more than 300 people, ships 2,500 train cars of particle board annually. It depends on Montreal, Maine & Atlantic to get its products to markets in the west. That route is now cut off because the factory is east of the crash site, which remains closed while crews work to recover bodies and remove tankers. The area is also considered a crime scene.
Burkhardt, the railroad's chairman, said it's uncertain how long the area will remain closed and when train traffic can resume.
He said Tasifa Canada and his staff are developing a plan to truck products a short distance, then load them onto rail cars west of the disaster site.
Burkhardt said he appreciates the offers of help from other railroads.
"It's a strange business," he said. "We are enemies one day and friends the next. We fight on one thing and cooperate on another."
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
MM&A Oil Train Tank Cars of Flawed Design
An article by David Crary of the AP/Kennebec Journal regarding the runaway MM&A oil train that crashed in Canada had a
rather interesting paragraph:
The tanker cars involved in the crash were the DOT-111 type
— a staple of the American freight rail fleet whose flaws have been noted as
far back as a 1991 safety study. Experts say the DOT-111's steel shell is so
thin that it is prone to puncture in an accident, potentially spilling cargo
that can catch fire, explode or contaminate the environment.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Runaway MM&A Oil Train Explodes Near Maine Border; Quebec Town Center in Ruins
LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec — A driverless freight train carrying tankers of crude oil derailed at high speed and exploded into a giant fireball in the middle of a small Canadian town early Saturday, destroying dozens of buildings, killing at least three people and leaving an unknown number of people missing.
The disaster occurred shortly after 1 a.m. when the runaway train with 73 cars sped into Lac-Megantic, a picturesque lakeside town of about 6,000 people near the border with Maine , and came off the rails. Witnesses said the town center was crowded at the time.
Four of the pressurized tank cars caught fire and blew up in a fireball that mushroomed many hundreds of feet up into the air. The train was transporting crude oil from North Dakota to eastern Canada, likely to New Brunswick, news that is bound to revive questions about the safest way to carry the oil needed to service North America’s economies…………………………..
An official from Montreal , Maine & Atlantic , the firm that operated the train, said the train had been parked some distance away from the town and no one was on board when it derailed.
“We’re not sure what happened, but the engineer did everything by the book. He had parked the train and was waiting for his relief … somehow, the train got released,” vice president of marketing Joseph R. McGonigle told Reuters………………… READ WHOLE ARTICLE
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Pan Am Oil Tank Cars Derail in Mattawamkeag ME
The morning of March 7th saw 15 tank cars loaded with crude oil derail in Mattawamkeag, Maine. Thirteen of the cars ended up on their sides. No injuries were reported, and the only oil that appears to have contaminated the area was from old residue on the tanks themselves, built up during the loading process. Reports state that there is a possibility of some oil leaking when crews begin the process of putting the cars upright again.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
New Pan Am Freight Train Names
According to railfans and scanner chatter, some of Pan Am's freight trains have new names. Here are the changes:
MOAY is now 22K - intermodal
AYMO is now 23K - intermodal
MOAY is now 22K - intermodal
MOAY is now 206 – loaded autorack
AYMO is now 205 – empty autorack
“Loaded Oil” is now MOBO / RJMA
“Empty Oil” is now BOMO / MARJ
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