The first enforcement actions against North Dakota tank car loaders for misclassifying Bakken crude oil were announced Feb. 4 by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The notices of violation and attendant fines totaling $93,000 were issued against Hess Corp., Whiting Oil and Gas Corp., and Marathon Oil Co.

On Jan. 10, 2014, three days after a string of tank cars derailed from a CN freight train in rural New Brunswick, clean-up specialists summoned from Louisiana attached charges to three un-breached hulls. Containing butane, the cars were considered too risky either to move, or to leave loaded adjacent to the wreck’s six other tank cars, still burning their consignments of liquid petroleum gas and crude oil.