Keystone pipeline restarted after oil spill near North Dakota community
Pipeline operator South Bow restarted its Keystone oil pipeline system after a spill near a North Dakota community shut down the line for almost a week.
The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) announced on April 14 that South Bow restarted the pipeline at a reduced pressure. Earlier in the day, the company monitored inclement weather conditions before proceeding with the planned controlled restart.
PHMSA approved the company's restart plan, but only under certain conditions spelled out in a corrective action order issued by the federal regulator on April 11. Several corrective actions in the order included the pressure restriction, mechanical and metallurgical testing of the failed pipe, and submission of a root cause analysis.
The company, which is based in Calgary, Canada, has said it will also institute certain pressure restrictions on the Canadian section of the Keystone pipeline.
The pipeline shut down on April 8 after an oil spill occurred near Fort Ransom, a community about 80 miles southwest of Fargo, North Dakota.
In an update on April 14, PHMSA said the failed section of pipe was excavated and replaced. The failed pipe will be sent to a metallurgical lab in Houston for testing while the repaired line will be "tested at various pressures to confirm its integrity," according to PHMSA.
"PHMSA investigators remain on site, and our investigation is ongoing," the regulator said in the update. "PHMSA will continue to monitor the operator’s compliance with the (corrective action order)."
Keystone oil spill estimated at 3,500 barrels
Bill Suess, spill investigation program manager with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality, told The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead that an employee heard a "mechanical bang" and shut down the pipeline within two minutes. Suess said the employee noticed oil surfacing in a nearby field.
Following the incident, South Bow reported that it began a shutdown and response at about 7:42 a.m. local time on April 8 after "control centre leak detection systems detected a pressure drop in the system." The system was shut down at 7:44 a.m., the company said in a statement.
The company noted that the affected segment was isolated and the release had been contained. The Keystone pipeline was pumping about 17,844 barrels of oil per hour when a part of the pipeline ruptured, spilling an estimated 3,500 barrels, or 147,000 gallons, onto agricultural land, according to Reuters.
Federal regulator details pattern of spills from Keystone pipeline
The Keystone pipeline spans nearly 2,700 miles and is a major channel for crude oil supply from Alberta, Canada, to U.S. refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma, and along the Gulf Coast.
In the corrective action order issued by PHMSA, the regulator detailed previous leaks and spills from the Keystone pipeline. Between 2016 and 2022, PHMSA documented at least five accidents involving the Keystone pipeline.
A 2021 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office also found 22 spills from the pipeline between 2010 and 2020, according to Reuters.
"The spills of 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2022, which resulted in reported releases of 400, 6,592, 4,515, 442, 12,937 barrels of crude oil, respectively, show a tendency or pattern in recent years of increasingly frequent incidents resulting in larger releases," the corrective action order states.
PHMSA also noted that the April 8 rupture looked similar to another one on the same pipeline in North Dakota in 2019, in which about 4,515 barrels of crude oil leaked. Initial findings of PHMSA's investigation showed that the failed pipe in both incidents was manufactured by the Berg Steel Pipe Corp.
Contributing: Chris Mueller, Sioux Falls Argus Leader; Reuters