(Source: Mother Jones, August 14, 2013)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Crude oil really isn’t supposed to explode. But according to a Tuesday article in Bloomberg on the investigation of the July 6 train accident in Quebec that killed 47 people, that might not be true of the oil coming from North Dakota’s booming Bakken region. And three major oil companies have won the right to turn down suspect shipments.
The cases bring together three major trends for the American energy industry: the rapid growth of the oil sands in Alberta and the oil fields of North Dakota, the dizzying increase in the amount of oil being shipped by rail (as pipeline capacities currently fall far short of being able to handle the volume of oil flowing through the states), and the introduction of unexpected variables as oil companies use new and intensive methods of extraction.
Full story: Mother Jones