Recently, environmentalists have been urging oil companies to reduce volatile gasses in Bakken crude. Oil train shipments from the Bakken have skyrocketed in recent years, which have heightened the worries. Environmental groups have been pushing the state to require that producers install equipment to stabilize the crude using a process that heats the oil to a higher temperature to release more gasses. North Dakota officials, however, say the more stringent heating requirement would cost oil companies as much as $2 per barrel.
Instead, beginning on April 1, state inspectors will check oil at well sites to make sure the vapor pressure runs no greater than 13.7 pounds per square inch of Reid Vapor Pressure, the measurement standard of volatile gases in crude oil.
Environmentalists maintain that the new, lower vapor standard is a step in the right direction but safer rail cars are also a critical part of the solution. The federal government is considering new rules for safer tank cars that might include thicker steel shells and larger pressure relief valves. The reasoning is that combining lower vapour pressure with high capacity relief valves should help avoid these boiling liquid explosive vapour incidents. Larger relief valves would allow rapidly expanding gases to escape, preventing rail tank cars from exploding.