OUR OPINION: A question for N.D.'s petroleum engineers

The U.S. Department of Transportation's new rail-safety rules are welcome. It's also reassuring to see the rules -- which were announced Friday -- get attacked from both sides, with environmentalists saying they're too easy and rail-industry officials saying they're too tough.

That's not proof of the rules' even-handedness. But it's a strong suggestion that the rule-makers are on the right track.

However, one vital point of national confusion remains. And it's one that petroleum engineers in North Dakota, very much including those at UND, could and should clear up.

It's the issue of the volatility of Bakken oil, and whether more should be done to treat the oil before shipment to reduce the risk of explosions and fireballs.

North Dakota regulators say they're doing all they reasonably can. And in one striking assertion, Lynn Helms -- a petroleum engineer and the director of the state's Department of Mineral Resources -- wrote recently that advocates for one much-talked-about alternative are basing their support on falsehoods and misunderstandings.

That alternative is stabilization. Supporters usually contrast it with conditioning, the process North Dakota now requires crude oil to undergo before shipping.

But conditioning doesn't do nearly enough to reduce the volatility of crude, critics say. Instead, stabilization -- as practiced by producers in the West Texas oil fields -- is the gold standard; and if North Dakota regulators weren't so eager to bow down before Big Oil, they'd recognize it.

Or would they? Because every statement in the preceding paragraph is false, Helms wrote in his op-ed ("Setting the record straight about oil conditioning," Page A4, April 3).

"One falsehood gaining traction holds that oil producers in Texas use a process called 'stabilization' to reduce the volatility of crude oil," he wrote.

"The fact is that stabilization is a process used not on crude oil, but on natural gas condensate (a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids) from natural gas wells. ... Crude oil producers in Texas are treating oil the same way that is now required of oil producers in North Dakota, which is conditioning crude oil by removing the light gases with temperature and pressure."

Now, here's the thing:

If -- and that's a big if -- what Helms said is true, then petroleum engineers at UND and elsewhere ought to confirm it. Because right now, the word isn't getting out.

Take these reactions to Friday's announcement of the new federal rail-safety rules:

• While Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., supports the rules, “this isn’t enough," he said in a press release. "I also want to see further action to reduce the volatility of oil being shipped through my state and across the country, which is something I’ve been fighting for."
• "Sen. Marie Cantwell, D-Wash., was more forceful, saying that the new regulations also failed to reduce the volatility of Bakken crude, which is more likely to catch fire and explode than other forms of crude," The New York Times reported.
• "West Virginia’s two senators, Republican Shelley Moore Capito and Democrat Joe Manchin, urged (transportation secretary Anthony) Foxx and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz in a letter Friday to move faster on studying oil volatility," according to Politico.com.
• "George Gavalla, a railroad safety consultant with 37 years in the industry, including seven as former head of the FRA safety office, called the new rules 'a significant improvement,'” Oregon Public Radio reported.

"But, he added, ‘a big issue that the rule does not address is the volatility of the crude oil, especially the Bakken crude oil.’”
Clearly, people in high places think crude oil can be rendered less volatile, and most of them likely believe stabilization is the way to do it. But either they're misguided, or Helms is; and to settle the issue, petroleum engineers in North Dakota and elsewhere should weigh in.