July 19, 2012:

BP Cherry Point Refinery may eventually use the railroad to get part of its crude oil supply from the Bakken Formation in Montana and North Dakota. Company spokesman Mike Abendhoff confirmed Wednesday, July 18, that BP officials have visited Whatcom County planning officials to discuss possible construction of $60 million worth of rail improvements at the refinery site to accommodate unit trains of crude oil tanker cars. If the project becomes a reality, the added volume of rail traffic is expected to be relatively low: a train every other day at first, and perhaps a train a day at maximum capacity, Abendhoff said. The crude oil trains probably would travel the rail line through Bellingham and return empty via the same route, although some trains also could be routed via Canada.

The number of trains the refinery project would generate is far less than the maximum of nine loaded trains that could be needed to keep SSA Marine's proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal busy at full capacity. Concern about the possible impact of trains bound for Gateway Pacific - loaded with coal and perhaps other bulk commodities for export to Asia - has triggered a furor in Bellingham and elsewhere. The coal trains, like the oil trains, would return empty via the same rail line through the city. Abendhoff said the company likely will decide within the next 60 days whether to proceed with the refinery rail project and file permit applications with the county. The rail modifications would be built south of Grandview Road and east of Blaine Road, on a site where BP once planned to build a large natural gas-fired power plant. Abendhoff said the company already has done extensive wetlands mitigation elsewhere in anticipation of the power plant project that was never built, and that may make further such mitigation unnecessary, in the company's view. Matt Krogh, North Sound baykeeper at RE Sources for Sustainable Communities, said the proposed crude oil rail shipments need close scrutiny.

"We are of course concerned about transport of large volumes of crude on tracks along the shoreline," Krogh said in an email. "At the same time, if this reduces the number of crude tankers we see coming through the Salish Sea, this might represent a reduction in risk. We do need a close look at what this means for risks to our waterways." Krogh also wants to review wetlands mitigation issues. "We haven't seen a proposal so can't really assess whether the mitigation is adequate or not, nor have we seen an assessment of whether the wetland mitigation they've done is adequate in terms of size and function," Krogh said. "If the wetlands (built as mitigation) really are working well, that's great. Doing mitigation in advance of damage is precisely what we want to see for these kinds of developments, so that ecosystems don't lose functionality for a time during development." Krogh also expressed concern about increased rail congestion that could affect both Amtrak service and availability of rail capacity for other goods. BNSF Railway Co. spokeswoman Suann Lundsberg said the railroad did not expect any difficulty in handling the oil shipments. Abendhoff said the company is studying the rail option as a possible new source of low-sulphur crude oil that is easier to refine into the lower-sulphur fuels that environmental regulations require.

The Cherry Point refinery now handles 225,000 barrels a day of crude oil that arrives from Alaska and many other places by tanker, or by a pipeline that carries crude oil from Canada. "This would give us a third option to bring crude in," Abendhoff said. "This would give us another domestic North American option." At most, the rail shipments could account for about 15 percent of the refinery's crude oil supply, he added. Whatcom County Planning Manager Tyler Schroeder said company officials had an informal discussion of the project with him and Planning Director Sam Ryan in June, but no official paperwork has been submitted. The Tesoro refinery in Anacortes is already getting crude oil by rail, as are a growing number of other U.S. refineries.

By The News Tribune