Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm: Bakken oil threatened by safety missteps

The Oklahoman ^ | 5/23/14 | James MacPherson

[T-Bird45]

AP Content - Excerpt only

BISMARCK, N.D. — The godfather of North Dakota’s present oil bonanza predicted the state’s crude production will double to 2 million barrels daily by decade’s end, but warned industry officials Thursday that future safety missteps would threaten that.

[T-Bird45]

I understand his concerns and think all efforts for safety should always be top-of-mind in this industry. That said, I just don't see how somebody loading oil in a railroad tank car can be responsible for a train crew that doesn't "tie down" those same cars in the required manner in Canada.

[T-Bird45]

Ping for your area of interest.

[Fightin Whitey]

*

[thackney]

Moving and producing hazardous material, is by definition, hazardous.

We do need to keep improving safety. And production booms usually find the points the safety is lacking.

Nearly all safety rules are written in blood. Often many people were hurt and/or killed before that rule became fixed in place.

[Smokin' Joe]

The truth doesn't matter to the media. Testing of Bakken crude oil has shown it to be well within the normal parameters of light sweet crude oil, with vapor pressure and volatility well within parameters for shipping--in the very tank cars it is shipped in.

The onus here should be on railroad safety.

Note, no big headlines when tank cars of Ethanol derail and explode. But, then, that ethanol is required by the government to mix in your fuel.

[ridesthemiles]

When I was a kid, it was ‘hazardous’ (by today’s wimpy standards) to shovel the manure out of the gutter behind the dairy cows we had.

That was in the 50’s. I am now 74 & still kicking.

[thackney]

Testing of Bakken crude oil has shown it to be well within the normal parameters of light sweet crude oil,

Which is why all those reports compared it to heavy oil. True statements, completely misleading, but true.

[Smokin' Joe]

The point is, that no matter which designation the oil had, it would have been shipped on tank cars jut like the ones used, per DOT specs.

[thackney]

Agreed. The DOT-111 need to be phased out. The original design is no longer built but there are a lot of them still in service.

[GladesGuru]

Forget “Plastics”.

“Pipelines.”