Oil is flowing again through the Keystone Pipeline, a week after 16,000 gallons of Canadian crude leaked into a South Dakota field. TransCanada Corp. began a controlled re-start Sunday after receiving approval from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration following repairs to the pipeline on Saturday. The pipeline is operating on a lower pressure than normal.
The cause of the breach remains unclear.
“We don’t know yet,” said James Millar, a TransCanada spokesman, who would only describe the pipeline failure as a “small leak.” “We are still working to determine what caused it.”
The company said there was no significant environmental impact or threat to public safety.
Millar said it was the first such breach of the 36-inch steel pipeline since it began operating in June 2010. It has since transported around 1.3 billion barrels of crude from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Illinois and Cushing, Oklahoma, passing through the eastern Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri.
The Keystone Pipeline can handle 550,000 barrels, or about 23 million gallons, daily. It’s part of a pipeline system that also would have included the Keystone XL pipeline had President Barack Obama not rejected that project last November.
The pipeline was shut down on April 2. About 100 workers have been working at the site, where crews excavated soil to expose more than 275 feet of pipe to find the leak, the company said.
TransCanada has not released estimates on cleanup costs and repairs.
