Stephanie Pindyck Costantino Talks Domestic Oil and Gas M&A with The Deal
While increasingly stringent flaring regulations are an inevitability for oil and gas producers, there are innovative paths companies can take to be compliant....more
The United States Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (“PHMSA”) issued a July 24th Public Notice and Invitation to Comment (“Notice”) addressing the states of North Dakota and Montana’s (“States”) request...more
In my former days defending agency actions in federal court, I had a standard line I used with frequent success when rules were attacked by all sides: “Your Honor, we’ve been sued here by both industry and environmental...more
Few of us can erase from our memories the imagery of fires blazing at the scenes of crude oil train derailments in West Virginia in early February and in Illinois earlier this month. The fact that these trains carrying Bakken...more
With low oil prices and producers slashing the rig count in the Bakken shale, it is fair to ask whether crude-by-rail will be able to compete with pipelines in the region. The bottom line is that crude-by-rail is likely to...more
Bakken crude oil increasingly heads south as low oil prices erode its competitive advantage in the U.S. East Coast market. The price of WTI crude oil—the benchmark price for most U.S. shale crudes—is moving toward parity with...more
On December 9 the North Dakota Industrial Commission issued an Order requiring production facilities to separate volatile gases, the so-called “light ends,” like propane and butane, from crude oil before it is shipped to...more
Our November 13 post noted that most of the crude oil from the Bakken Formation in North Dakota is shipped to ports and refineries throughout the United States by rail, typically in unit trains with one hundred cars or more....more
Happy Days Are Here Again? Gasoline prices have been falling steadily for months. Now a gallon may be purchased for substantially less than three dollars in many regions of the country. ...more
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, towns in the western United States grew and thrived around the railroad. In fact, the railroad tracks often became a central geographic feature within towns, birthing the...more
A recent state-law challenge by environmental groups to an aspect of crude-by-rail transportation has teed up the question of federal supremacy over railroad regulation. Because federal law generally preempts state regulation...more