Officials said a damaged portion of the Keystone Pipeline reopened Thursday after weeks of repairs and cleanup following a 600,000-gallon crude oil leak into a Kansas stream.
The pipeline, which carries oil from Canada to multiple U.S. states, shut down on Dec. 8 after spilling nearly 14,000 barrels of crude the day before at a segment of the system in Kansas, which forms part of the pipeline’s Cushing Extension.
It was considered one of the largest crude oil spills in the United States in nearly a decade.
The pipeline’s Canadian operator, TC Energy, said the Cushing Extension will follow plans authorized by the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
The company said the pipeline would operate with additional risk-mitigation measures, which include reduced operating pressures.
“We maintain our commitment to our ongoing safety-led response and will fully remediate the incident site. We will share the learnings from the investigation as they become available,” the company’s statement stated.
In a statement, TC Energy President, Liquids Pipelines Richard Prior thanked the landowners surrounding the pipeline incident, as well as tribes, and local officials had offered meals and lodging to crews working to repair the damage.
“Our team has been overwhelmed by your generosity and kindness, including offers of meals and lodging,” Prior said.
Spill Response
The Keystone Pipeline connects Alberta, Canada, to Illinois and Texas in the United States through a more than 2,600-mile hazardous liquid pipeline system. The fault occurred on what is known as the Cushing Extension, a 36-inch diameter pipeline segment completed in 2011.TC Energy operates the pipeline, which distributes 622,000 barrels of heavy Canadian oil daily from Canada to refineries in the United States.
To mitigate the spill, the response included isolating the damaged segment of the pipe and stopping the downstream flow of the spilled oil, which crews then worked to contain and recover.
The company said it set up a secondary dam, and vacuum trucks and crews are working around the clock over the Christmas period to clean up the spill, with multiple booms downstream of the spill site to stop the oil from migrating further downstream.
“We appreciate this incident is concerning for you, the community, and we share that concern,” Prior said. “We have mobilized over 500 resources onsite. I’ve seen first-hand the care, concern, and effort going into our response and recovery, which carried over into the safe and successful restart of the Cushing Extension of the pipeline. We will continue our work until we’ve cleaned up and restored the affected areas.”
“We recognize that incidents like this raise questions,” he continued. “We have questions too. We are committed to asking those tough questions, fully investigating and sharing our learnings and actions. We take our responsibility very seriously. We will not rest until we have recovered and remediated the areas affected by this incident. No incident is ever acceptable to us.”
The cause of the leak remains under investigation. Sabotage was previously ruled out.