Sierra Club To Kill CBR; Late On Fracking Will Not Let This Opportunity Pass

If the Sierra Club can't stop fracking, they will stop CBR. The Journal is reporting:

Companies that thought they had found a relatively easy way to move crude from the booming oil fields of North Dakota to the West Coast are encountering obstacles.

Half a dozen companies are trying to build rail terminals on the coast of Washington state to receive trainloads of crude from the Bakken field in North Dakota. The oil would then be transferred to ships and barges that could carry it to refineries in the Pacific Northwest or south to California. Analysts say regulatory hurdles make it difficult to build the necessary rail yards and tank farms in California, and it's more expensive to ship crude there.

But getting a permit in Washington is proving more challenging than companies expected.

Targa Resources Partners recently called off plans to build a new crude-oil tank farm and rail yard at the Port of Tacoma, saying it was "unable to identify an economical path forward."

The company, which didn't return requests for comment, applied earlier this year to get a permit from a regional clean-air agency that would allow it to ship crude by barge from its existing facility at the port, but that is still being reviewed.

And in the wake of this summer's train derailment in Quebec that killed 47 people, some groups are vowing to stop projects that would increase the number of oil trains rumbling through communities. "The whole enterprise raises serious concerns about the heightened risk of transporting crude by rail," said Devorah Ancel, a staff attorney for the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group that has opposed some of the crude-by-rail projects at Washington ports. Companies that want to transport crude by rail say the risks are minimal, and the rewards are great. Refiners have said shipping crude by rail from North Dakota to Washington is a bargain at as little as $10 a barrel, compared with $13 to $16 for a barrel of crude to travel by rail to California and $16 to ship a barrel to the East Coast.

Targa was in the news a year ago when it was announced it would invest $1 billion in North Dakota-Bakken-related operations. I don't know how this latest setback -- calling off plans for a CBR unloading facility in Washington State, Port of Tacoma.