WASHINGTON COUNTY (KSNT) — The massive Keystone Pipeline has been shut down after an oil leak was discovered in a Kansas stream.
TC Energy said it shut down the pipeline at 8 p.m. Wednesday after a pressure drop in the system. Crews are responding to “contain and recover the oil,” the company said in a press release.
“Our primary focus at this time is the health and safety of on-site staff and personnel, the surrounding community, and the mitigation of environmental risks through the deployment of booms downstream as we work to contain and prevent further release migration,” the company said. . He did not specify the amount of oil spilled or the cause of the spill.
The leak is believed to have occurred 20 miles south of Steele City, Nebraska, on the Kansas-Nebraska border, a major hub for the 2,687-mile pipeline system. The pipeline carries oil from Canada through South Dakota to Steele City, where it splits. One arm crosses Missouri to the east, the other crosses Kansas and the Gulf Coast of Texas. More than 3 billion barrels of crude oil have been transported on the pipeline since it was commissioned in 2010.
There was a brief spike in oil prices on Thursday midday as news of the spill began to spread, with the cost per barrel of oil for short-term contracts rising nearly 5%, and higher than the cost of contracts tankers further into the future. This usually suggests that the market is worried about immediate supply.
Randy Hubbard, the Washington County emergency management coordinator, said there was no evacuation because the rupture occurred in a rural area in the middle of a pasture. He did not know the name of the creek or what body of water it flows into.
He said the pipeline operator did not disclose the amount of oil spilled and it could take a day and a half to get that data.
Hubbard said he did not go to the site, but is supporting investigators from the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Kansas department spokesman Matt Lara said he was sending a team to the site but had no information. The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and officials from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration did not immediately respond to questions about the oil spill Thursday.
“Everyone is in their fact-finding process,” Hubbard said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.