BULK BARGAIN

摘要

THE US PIPELINE and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration [PHMSA] has been rather quiet this year in terms of new rulemakings, and with an election in the offing in November there is little chance of any significant new activity in the near future. It has, however, issued two regulatory notices over the past few months of interest to those involved in the movement of flammable liquids in bulk by rail, both of which should benefit industry. The first of these was actually the withdrawal of a proposed rulemaking. PHMSA had, in concert with its colleagues in Transport Canada, started to look at the safety issues involved in the transport of crude oil derived from oil shales and shale oil, in the wake of the fatal accident in Lac-Megantic, Quebec in July 2013 and other incidents involving the transport of crude oil from the Bakken fields, which lie largely in Montana and North Dakota but also across the border in Canada. One concern was that the entrained natural gas in the oil could lead to an increase in vapour pressure and make the oil more susceptible to explosion in the event of an accident.