Canadian government acts to increase safety in the transportation of dangerous goods

… the Honourable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Transport, acted to further enhance safety in the transportation of dangerous goods by directing that a protective direction be issued requiring any person who imports or offers for transport crude oil to conduct classification tests on crude oil…

Effective immediately, any person who imports or offers for transport crude oil must:

• Conduct classification testing of any crude oil being classified as UN 1267 or UN 1993, which has not undergone classification testing since July 7, 2013;
• Make those tests results available to Transport Canada upon request;
• Update their Safety Data Sheets and immediately provide them to Transport Canada's Canadian Transport Emergency Centre; and
• Until such testing is completed, ship all such crude oil as Class 3 Flammable Liquid Packing Group I, when shipping by rail...

This has been excerpted from 17 October 2013 news release by Transport Canada, and is available in its entirety at http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/mediaroom/releases-2013-h137e-7384.html.