The House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee held a Railroad Shippers Roundtable July 25 to provide oversight on the impacts of Precision-Scheduled Railroading. Witnesses at the hearing included Josh Etzel, Vice President Operations for Kinder Morgan Energy Partners and a member of the ILTA Board of Directors, along with a group of other rail customers and industry associations. 

Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed a law May 9 that limits the Reed Vapor Pressure of crude oil that facilities in the state may load or unload. Any volumes that are more than 10% by volume of what was handled in 2018 must have an RVP of 9 psi or less or be treated to meet that standard. The states of North Dakota and Montana have threatened to challenge the rule in the courts and have applied to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for a determination whether federal law preempts Washington state’s law (see Federal Register notice for further information). ILTA is closely following this issue and will comment on the application to prevent state interference in the transportation of commodities handled by our members.

ILTA is working with a coalition of other trade associations, including the American Petroleum Institute, American Chemistry Counsel, American Fuel & Petrochemical Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to prevent Congress from mandating unfair regulation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

Congress passed a two-year budget deal that lifts the debt ceiling and boosts government spending by $320 billion before leaving town for a month-plus-long summer recess. The legislation eliminates all limits on federal government debt through July 2021, after the next Presidential election. It also increases spending caps for the next two years.

 

ILTA is pleased to welcome Carlton Industries, of La Grange, Texas, and SEMPCheck Services Inc. of Houston as new supplier members. Carlton offers emergency response services; hazardous materials management; heating equipment and supplies; safety equipment; spill prevention, tags; tank accessories and vessel supplies. SEMPCheck, www.sempcheck.com offers environmental audits; consultancy services; data acquisition and distribution systems; emissions evaluation and control; inspection services; management services; staffing services; regulatory compliance; public awareness programs; safety analysis and services; risk management; training; tagging; and testing services and equipment.

S&P Global Platts, July 26, 2019

Citing nearly 80% completion of its Gray Oak Pipeline, Phillips 66 announced that it had secured all necessary permits and right-of-way and was on track for start-up in Q4 2019. The pipeline will provide transport for Permian Basin and Eagle Ford crude oil to the U.S. Gulf Coast including Corpus Christi, Sweeny and Houston markets.

WFMJ.com, July 30, 2019
Private investment firm Prostar Capital announced a $250 million acquisition of an oil storage terminal on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius in the Caribbean from NuStar Energy, L.P. The terminal will be renamed "GTI Statia" and serve global and regional import and export markets.

MarketScreener, July 30, 2019
MPLX announced its completion of the Andeavor Logistics acquisition in a one-for-one unit transaction with approximately $5 billion of debt assumption. Andeavor shareholders will receive MPLX quarterly cash dividends of $0.6675 per common unit for the second quarter.

Portland Tribune, July 30, 2019
The Portland Bureau of Development Services issued Zenith Energy Management certificates of occupancy the week, allowing the use of a newly built racking platform. Zenith claims the new racking system will more than triple its capacity, allowing up to 44 railcars – the maximum allowed on the rail spur – to be offloaded at the same time.

Business Breaking News, July 24, 2019
Noco Energy Corp. has sold its Tonawanda fuel terminal near Grand Island bridges to Marathon Petroleum Corp for $2.93 million as part of a broader deal that included the purchase of 33 Noco Express convenience stores. The stores will be rebranded as Speedway stores.

ConstructionEquipmentGuide.com, July 16, 2019
On June 10, 2019, Phillips 66 announced two separate 50/50 joint ventures with Liberty Pipelines to provide connectivity from key shale oil regions to the U.S. Gulf Coast market, and with Red Oak Pipeline to provide transport from the US Rockies and Bakken regions to Cushing, OK.

Hydrocarbon Processing, August 2, 2019
Kinder Morgan Liquids Terminals LLC has told the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware that Philadelphia Energy Solutions has failed to make payments totaling nearly $1.5 million for fuel storage and other services prior to PES filing for bankruptcy.

Blueknight Energy Partners, L.P. said Ergon Inc. has proposed to buy all shares not already owned by the company. Subject to several contingency, the proposed deal would merge the company’s complementary midstream energy assets. BKEP owns 8.8 million barrels of liquid asphalt storage located at 53 terminals in 26 states; 6.9 million barrels of above-ground crude oil storage capacity located primarily in Oklahoma, approximately 6.6 million barrels of which are located at the Cushing Interchange terminalling facility in Cushing, Oklahoma; 646 miles of crude oil pipeline located primarily in Oklahoma and Texas; and 60 crude oil transportation vehicles deployed in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

 

The ILTA Board of Directors welcomed four new Board members at the recent meeting held in Seattle, WA on July 18-19. The four were: Traci Johnson, Vice President of Environmental, Health, Safety, Security at IMTT; James Hill, Chief Operating Officer at Associated Asphalt Partners, LLC; Laurie Wilkins, Terminal, Transport & Rail General Manager at Marathon Petroleum Company; and Bob Sanders, Senior Vice President of Asset Optimization for Enterprise Products Operating LLC.     

The ILTA IdeaScale site is live and ready for your ideas for conference sessions, speakers, and topics.  Let us know what topics you liked best this year and would like to see again, as well as new and innovative areas we should look to include. Self-nominations are welcome! 

ILTA will release its new member directory in November. We’ve hired Naylor Association Solutions to help us revamp the directory, so that you can enjoy the same great information in a new magazine format.

ILTA Staff Spotlight is an ongoing feature that allows our members to get to know the ILTA staff better. This month our director of meetings, Meredith DeZemler, who has been with ILTA for a little over a year, is in the spotlight.

 

We’d like to remind Terminal Members to join us in San Antonio for the ILTA fall EHS&S meetings on September 10-11. We have a great agenda that includes discussion of current environmental issues, air quality monitoring in an emergency, remote leak detection, person-in-water response, information about unmanned aerial systems and more. Plus, we have some special events planned!