The $5.2 billion Keystone Oil Pipeline Outage Stop Blocks Thousands of Gallons of Canadian Oil from the US
The approximately 2,700-mile Keystone Oil Pipeline was closed Tuesday morning after bursting in North Dakota, stopping thousands of gallons of flowCanadian Crude OilTo a US refinery
Southbow, the liquid pipeline business that manages the pipeline, said the control center’s leak detection system shut down the pipeline after it detected a pressure drop in the system. The spill is limited to the agricultural sector in rural areas, about 60 miles southwest of Fargo.
“The affected segments are quarantined and operational and containment resources are mobilized to the site,” the company said. “Our main focus is now on mitigating safety and environmental risks for field staff.”
The pipeline transported an average of 624,000 barrels per day in 2024.According toCanadian regulators. It stretches to 2,689 miles (4,327 kilometers) from Albert in Canada to Texas.
It was not clear why it was caused by bursting underground pipelines and the amount of crude oil released into the fields. Employees working at a site near Fort Ransom heard the “mechanical bang” and closed the pipeline within about two minutes, said Bill Seuss, Spil Research Program Manager for the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality.
Suess said oil surfaced about 300 yards (274 meters) south of the field pump station, with emergency personnel responding.
No one or the structure was affected by the spill, he said. The nearby streams, which only flowed in part of the year, were unaffected, but as a precaution, he said, were blocked and quarantined. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Agency are sending teams to investigate the cause of the leak.
Fort Ransom is located in a forested area in the hilly area of southeast North Dakota, known for its scenic scenery.
It’s unclear how fast the 30-inch (0.8 meters) pipeline is flowing, but even two minutes “it’s got a pretty good volume,” Suess said. “But… we had a lot, much bigger spill,” including one that included the same pipeline a few years ago.Walsh County, North Dakotahe said.
“I don’t think it’s going to be that huge,” Seuss said.
The Keystone Pipeline was built in 2010 at a cost of $5.2 billion, and crude oil was transported to refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. The pipeline was built by TC Energy, but is now managed by South Bow as of 2024.
The proposed extension to the pipeline called Keystone XL would have transported the crude oil to a refinery in the Gulf, but in the end it wasWas abandoned by the company in 2021After years of protests from environmental activists and Indigenous communities over environmental concerns.
December 2022,Approximately 13,000 barrels of oilIt’s spilledFrom the keystone lines in Kansas to streams crossing pastures.The engineering consulting company saidThe bends in the site’s pipeline have been “excessively stressed” since it was set up in 2010.TC Energy saidThe false welding of the line bend caused cracks that worsened over time.
This story was originally introduced Fortune.com