Oil brought by rail, truck to Burnaby refinery

An oil refinery in Burnaby says it has been forced to receive oil by rail and by truck because the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline isn’t able to meet demand.

Up to 35,000 barrels of crude oil come through the pipeline to Chevron’s Burnaby refinery every day. But spokesman Ray Lord says that isn’t enough.

"Bringing Western Canadian crude oil to the refinery by rail has been something that we have needed to do in order to keep the refinery at capacities that make sense," he said.

Eight to 10 rail cars deliver about 6,500 barrels a day to the refinery, Lord said. Another 1,000 barrels of oil a day are also delivered by tanker truck.

Lord says he doesn’t foresee an increase in the number of rail cars bringing oil to the refinery.

He also said it was unlikely there would be an accident like the one seen in Lac-Mégantic, Que., where a derailed train carrying crude oil exploded in the town's core, levelling buildings and killing as many as 37 people.

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"The cars that are coming to the refinery carrying the crude here to the refinery are all being moved in under very, very carefully controlled switching operations at very low speed," Lord said.

The Chevron Burnaby refinery produces a third of all the transportation fuel used in southwestern B.C. and 40 per cent of the jet fuel used at the Vancouver airport.