A section of the Keystone Pipeline, which runs through parts of the United States and Canada, failed Wednesday evening for reasons unknown at the time causing a large oil spill. It happened in northeastern Kansas, near Washington. According to the company that manages the pipeline, the Canadian TC Energy, about 14,000 barrels of oil from Canada were lost, a quantity equal to 2.2 million litres. To get an idea: every day the Keystone carries 622,000 barrels of oil. American newspapers speak of this loss as the largest in the United States in nearly a decade.
Investigators, cleanup crews begin scouring oil pipeline spill in Kansas https://t.co/hiPh41Y81Z pic.twitter.com/IEgicQJLEJ
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 10, 2022
Currently the pipeline activity is suspended. A team of US federal investigators are trying to figure out what caused the leak together with TC Energy and about a hundred of the company’s environmental disaster experts are working to clean up the area of the leak, and confine it. The oil contaminated a small stream, but it did not jeopardize the area’s water supplies or necessitate evacuations of the population. Whoever is intervening to manage the emergency has installed a system to prevent the dispersion of oil.
TC Energy is seeking to reactivate at least part of the Keystone pipeline, according to sources of Bloomberg, to supply Illinois with oil. According to the US pipeline regulator, the company shut down Keystone seven minutes after the leak alert was raised.
This is the third major oil leak at the facility since the opening of the Keystone Pipeline in 2010. A previous leak had caused it to shut down for about two weeks.
