Several fiery rail accidents in 2013-2015 in the U.S. and Canada carrying crude oil produced from the Bakken region of North Dakota have raised questions at many levels on the safety of transporting this, and other types of crude oil, by rail. Sandia National Laboratories was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy to investigate the material properties of crude oils, and in particular the so-called "tight oils" like Bakken that comprise the majority of crude oil rail shipments in the U.S. at the current time. The current report is a literature survey of public sources of information on crude oil properties that have some bearing on the likelihood or severity of combustion events that may occur around spills associated with rail transport. The report also contains background information including a review of the notional "tight oil" field operating environment, as well a basic description of crude oils and potential combustion events in rail transport. This page intentionally blank.

Process Safety for Engineers Familiarizes an engineer new to process safety with the concept of process safety management In this significantly revised second edition of Process Safety for Engineers: An Introduction, CCPS delivers a comprehensive book showing how Process Safety concepts are used to reduce operational risks. Students, new engineers, and others new to process safety will benefit from this book. In this updated edition, each chapter begins with a detailed incident case study, provides steps that help address issues, and contains problem sets which can be assigned to students. The second edition covers: Process Safety: including an overview of CCPS’ Risk Based Process Safety Hazards: specifically fire and explosion, reactive chemical, and toxicity Design considerations for hazard control: including Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis Management of operational risk: including management of change In addition, the book presents how Process Safety performance is monitored and sustained. The associated online resources are linked to the latest online CCPS resources and lectures.

More Incidents that Define Process Safety book describes over 50 incidents which have had a significant impact on the chemical industry as well as the basic elements of process safety. Each incident is presented in sufficient detail to gain an understanding of root causes for the event with a focus on lessons learned and the impact the incident had on process safety. Incidents are grouped by incident type including Reactive chemical; Fires; Explosions; Environmental/toxic releases; and Transportation incidents. The book also covers incidents from other industries that illustrate the safety management elements. The book builds on the first volume and adds incidents from China, India, Italy and Japan. Further at the time the first volume was being written, CCPS was developing a new generation of process safety management elements that were presented as risk based process safety; these elements are addressed in the incidents covered.