By Jack Dura
Bismarck, ND (AP) – Trucks and workers began to clean the spill of Keystone oil oil in rural Dakota, although its cause and the timing of the project are not clear.
The pipeline broke Tuesday morning in south-eastern Dakota in the north and was closed in two minutes by an employee who heard a mechanical blow. An aerial photo published Wednesday shows a black oil swimming pool and similar to a pond suspended in a partially snowy field which is crossed by tire tracks.
A farmer told the Associated Press that he could smell the smell of crude oil, worn by the wind.
South Bow, a liquid pipeline company that manages the pipeline, estimated the volume of the spill at 3,500 barrels, or 147,000 gallons. The entire Keystone system remains closed.
What caused the spill?
It is not yet known. The company Investigates what caused the spill and the duration of repairs, spokesperson Kristin Anderson said on Wednesday.
The spill is not a minor, said Paul Blackburn, a political analyst at Bold Alliance, an environmental group and land owner who fought the extension of the pipeline, called Keystone XL.
The estimated volume of 3,500 barrels, or 147,000 gallons of crude oil, is equal to 16 oil tankers, he said. This estimate could increase over time, he added.
Blackburn said the situation as a whole was what he called the history of Keystone pipeline spills at a higher pace than the other pipelines. He compared Keystone with Dakota Access oil oil since the latter intervened in June 2017. During this period, the Keystone system spread nearly 1.2 million gallons (4.5 million liters) of oil, while access to Dakota overthrew 1,282 gallons (4,853 liters), said Blackburn.
In its update, the company declared that the pipeline “operated in its requirements of design and regulatory approval at the time of the incident”.
Generally, underground oil pipelines can have a number of stressors, said Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice-president of energy and innovation at the University of Houston.
These include corrosive elements of the liquid in the pipeline, the change in temperatures, the movement of the soil, the movements of the trains or the construction equipment on the surface and the constraint to the turns, the turns and the joints in the pipeline, he said.
The 2,700 mile (4,350 kilometers) pipeline comes from Alberta, Canada, and transports raw oil with heavy -up sands south through the Dakotas and Nebraska before separating to transport oil to both Illinois and South refineries to Oklahoma and Texas.
The Keystone pipeline of $ 5.2 billion was built in 2010. TC Energy built the pipeline which is operated by South Bow from last year.
How did the company replied?
The spill is contained in an agricultural field. In an update on Wednesday, South Bow said he had several empty trucks on site starting to recover the oil. Continuous air quality monitoring is underway. The affected segment of the pipeline is isolated and the company said that it evaluated the plans for a return to service.
Telephone messages and emails were left on Wednesday with the State Department of Environmental Quality and Ransom County Sheriff on spill and response.
Myron Hammer, an adjacent landowner who cultivates the land affected by the spill, said that this had not yet affected him, apart from the smell of raw oil or sulfur when the wind blows in a certain direction. The pipeline company seems to make its reasonable diligence to solve the problem, he said.
There has been a lot of truck trafficking bringing equipment to the scene, he said. His house is around 1.75 miles (2.82 kilometers).
“It has become a hive of activity nearby there,” said Hammer. Part of his property is used as a staging area for equipment. He said that he will have to cancel plans to cultivate about 5 acres or more land affected by the spill.
The spill site is north of Fort Ransom, a small town in a hilly and wooded area known for picturesque views and outdoor leisure. A state park and hiking trails are nearby.
The rupture in northern Dakota occurred within 2 and a half years after a break in December 2022 in the northeast of rural Kansas which spilled around 13,000 barrels of crude oil in a stream. The company attributed the break to a defective welding in a pipe turn, saying that it had caused a crack that grew up over time under stress.
A report written by an external engineering consulting company for regulators of the US government said that the turn had been “came on” since its installation in December 2010, probably because the construction activity itself had changed the land around the pipe. A July 2021 report by the US Government Accountability Office said that the four largest previous spills in the Keystone system were caused by problems linked to its original design, its construction or the manufacture of the pipe.
Will the price of gas increase?
They could very well, although energy experts have different perspectives.
Pipeline stops could quickly increase gas prices in the Midwest and could have more effects on diesel and jet fuel because refineries will have less crude oil they need, said Krishnamoorti.
More dear diesel could cause higher grocery prices because diesel trucks carry these products, he said.
Other experts have said that refineries probably had a crude oil supply already at hand that would help protect against the immediate impacts of the closure.
“Even if the pipeline is completely cut to, say, 2 or 3 weeks, it has enough crude (oil) to continue to refine petrol,” said Mark Lacour, editor of the global oil and gas network.
Gas prices have increased for a third consecutive week in the United States, but this could change as oil prices are falling in the middle of climbing world trade war.
The writer Associated Press John Hanna contributed by Topeka, Kansas.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
