Keystone pipeline leak in Kansas to rank among largest in US this decade
Breanne Deppisch
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A leak along the Keystone oil pipeline discovered in Kansas this week is poised to be one of the largest onshore crude disasters of the decade and could threaten oil deliveries to the United States at a time when markets have already been strained.
Pipeline operators were forced to order an emergency shutdown for the entire Keystone pipeline, which ships heavy crude from Canada to the U.S., after the leak was discovered at a creek some 20 miles south of Steele City, Nebraska.
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TC Energy officials said Thursday that 14,000 barrels were leaked, making it the largest such leak in Keystone history and among the top five onshore spills in the U.S. this decade.
Others include the 2013 rupture of Tesoro’s High Point Pipeline in Mountrail County, North Dakota, and the 2010 Enbridge Energy leak in Marshall, Michigan.
Any disruption to the line, which sends oil to the Midwest and U.S. Gulf Coast, could put a dent in U.S. inventories when oil inventories are already at a critical low point.
“It’s really a worst-case scenario if this outage is long-lasting,” Rory Johnston, founder of energy newsletter Commodity Context, told Reuters.
TC Energy said the affected segment of the pipeline has been isolated and that downstream migration of the release has been contained, but a restart date for operations remains unclear.
Some expect it will take at least a few days since the leak had reached a waterway, which adds potential difficulty for cleanup efforts.
Plans for return-to-service “continue to be evaluated,” TC Energy said Friday in response toa request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has sent personnel to the site to investigate the incident and has ordered the pipeline to remain shut until the regulator authorizes a restart, it said in a statement. Two EPA coordinators were also dispatched to the site.
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The pipeline is different from the canceled Keystone XL pipeline that was the subject of bitter debate for years.