"Crude-Oil Impurities Are Probed in Rail Blasts"

"After three fiery accidents involving trains carrying crude oil out of North Dakota's Bakken Shale, regulators and industry officials are trying to figure out why the oil is exploding."



"Crude is flammable, but before being refined into products such as gasoline it is rarely implicated in explosions.

Yet earlier this week, when a BNSF Railway Co. train hauling 104 tank cars filled with Bakken crude struck another train, some of the cars exploded one after the other, releasing fireballs that blazed several stories above the frozen prairie."

Russell Gold and Lynn Cook report for the Wall St. Journal January 1, 2014.

SEE ALSO:

"Concern Over Safety Grows as More Oil Rides the Rails" (New York Times)

"Bakken Crude May Be More Flammable Than Previously Thought: U.S. Regulator" (Reuters)

"Feds Question Bakken Crude in Wake of Rail Explosions" (The Hill/E2 Wire)

"Warning Issued About Oil Shipped From ND, Mont." (AP)

"The Hazards of Moving Oil By Rail Again on Display, This Time in North Dakota" (Dot Earth/NY Times)

"Derailing Revives Calls To Change How Trains Haul Crude Oil" (NPR)

"Safety Questions After North Dakota Derailment" (AP)

"Inside the Oil-Shipping Free-For-All That Brought Disaster To Lac-Mégantic" (Toronto Globe & Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-a...

"The Deadly Secret Behind the Lac-Mégantic Inferno" " (Toronto Globe & Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-a...
 

Source: Wall St. Journal, 01/03/2014