Shipments of crude oil by railroad into California plummeted by 69 percent in 2015 amid the price collapse in oil and the shrinking difference in international and U.S. prices. California imports of crude-by-rail averaged 4,800 barrels a day in 2015, down from 15,700 in 2014, according to data released Thursday by the state’s Energy Commission. Almost all the state’s crude by train comes from New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. “The economics of crude-by-rail are very poor right now,” Ian Goodman, president of The Goodman Group Ltd., a Berkeley, California-based energy consultancy, said in a phone interview. The difference between international and U.S. prices has narrowed, he said, and refineries are taking deliveries by water and by an improved pipeline system rather than using more expensive trains. Using rail made sense for refiners when U.S.-produced oil was significantly cheaper than imported, then a spate of deadly accidents in 2014 prompted […]