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TransCanada’s suspends oil shipments on Keystone pipeline to deal with leak
News Articles Featured | Winnipeg Free Press | May 31, 2011
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CALGARY – TransCanada Corp. has suspended shipments of crude oil along its Keystone pipeline while it repairs and cleans up a small leak at a Kansas pumping station.
The latest spill comes just 2 1/2 weeks after the Calgary-based company experienced a similar problem at a pumping station in North Dakota.
A spokesman for the Calgary-based company (TSX:TRP) originally said there was a 40-barrel leak at a pump station due to problems with a fitting. The company later lowered the estimate to 10 barrels.
The failure of a three-quarter inch fitting in early May was responsible for a leak of 500 barrels of crude at a pumping station in North Dakota.
“Unfortunately, on this weekend (in Kansas), it was a half-inch fitting — a different type of fitting — that broke, resulting in some crude oil being released onto our property,” said TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha.
Keystone normally carries between 400,000 and 450,000 barrels per day of Alberta crude to Cushing, Okla., but has capacity to carry 591,000 barrels per day.
“We don’t expect (the disruption) to have any impact on our ability to deliver for our customers,” Cuhna said Tuesday.
The broader problem for TransCanada and other pipeline companies is the increased scrutiny on them since the huge BP offshore well blowout last year in the Gulf of Mexico.
Environmentalists and landowners in several U.S. states are have been opposing TransCanada’s $13-billion plan for Keystone XL, which will double the system’s capacity and extend its reach further south to refineries in Texas.
