Three recent fiery derailments of trains transporting crude oil from the Bakken Shale formation in North Dakota have attracted the attention of the federal government as well as the petroleum industry. The U.S. Department of Transportation in February 2014 issued an emergency order requiring companies to test and accurately classify Bakken oil before shipping it by rail. The American Petroleum Institute plans to develop guidelines for testing the viscosity, corrosion, and vapor pressure of crude oil to ensure it is loaded only into railcars equipped with the appropriate safety features. By Tara S. Hundley