Yellowstone River Oil Spill Will Cost Exxon $135 Million

BILLINGS, Mont. -- Exxon Mobil said Friday it expects to incur costs of about $135 million from an oil pipeline break beneath Montana's Yellowstone River that triggered a massive effort to limit damage to the scenic waterway.

The cost figure was released to The Associated Press. It is more than triple an earlier estimate and includes for the first time the expense of replacing the section of broken pipeline with a new one buried more deeply beneath the river.

The company's 12-inch Silvertip crude oil pipeline broke July 1 during severe flooding.

In the 56 minutes it took Exxon Mobil to seal off the line, an estimated 42,000 gallons of oil leaked into the river near Laurel. That fouled dozens of miles of riverbank, numerous islands and swaths of low-lying cropland with crude.

More than 1,000 workers were involved in the cleanup effort at its peak.

Work to remove the damaged pipeline began Monday and is expected to take several weeks.

An Exxon Mobil spokeswoman declined to offer a detailed breakdown of the company's costs and provided only a broad overview of expenses.

"This estimate includes costs for overall emergency response and cleanup efforts including personnel, equipment, landowner claims and projects associated with the restart of the pipeline such as the horizontal directional drill," company spokeswoman Claire Hassett said.

"Horizontal directional drill" refers to the process the company used to bore a new route for the pipeline dozens of feet beneath the riverbed. That move was mandated by federal pipeline regulators.

The original pipeline was buried only a few feet beneath the riverbed. State and federal officials have speculated that summer flooding scoured the riverbed and left the pipe exposed to damaging debris and the sheer force of the rushing river.

A federal lawsuit against Exxon Mobil is pending from landowners along the river who accuse the company of a "haphazard, sloppy" cleanup.

The lawsuit also claims the company failed to heed warnings from local officials who raised concerns about Silvertip months before the accident. The company denies the claims.

Comments

[ColoradoCool]

04:23 AM on 11/09/2011

These are the folks who have bought up every ad opportunity on both the Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell shows when you watch them online and try to pursuade you every few minutes that they're responsible citizens of our planet and should be allowed to continue fracking and mining oil sand. I mute the sound while the yammer EVERY TIME.

I can't even THINK the word "Exxon" without wanting to say the word "Valdez". What a bunch of grifters!

[demisfine]

05:35 PM on 11/06/2011

Stop Keystone XL.
There is not enough due diligence being done to AVOID these catastrophes.
The cost to clean them up is so small compared tot he profits earned, that Big Oil deems them worth the risk.
No More paying with our pristine countryside for their risky projects.

[couldhavebeenher]

04:17 PM on 11/06/2011

No more spills! More precutionary measures needed!
That's how we fight: http://vimeo.com/31366988

[Olderandwiser55]

03:52 PM on 11/06/2011

It's not over...."Exxon Mobil said Friday it expects to..."

There is still landowners than haven't settled. There is still the pipe to be examined.....

[MyTake]

08:46 PM on 11/05/2011

Gee, $135 Million is not an issue for Exxon.

The CIA Red Cells reporting to The Pratt House, David Rockefeller, Chairman Emeritus, will now PLOT some JITTERS in Nigeria or some place that will drive up the stock market price of oil and Exxon will pay this off as if it were a "parking ticket".

Exxon Law Firms dragged that Exxon Valdez $5 Billion initial court ordered judgement through the courts for 15 years before having the Supreme Court reduce it to just $5 Million.

And Justice Alito had to recuse himself from the case because he HELD STOCKS IN EXXON!

In the immortal words of Rockefeller Agent: Henry Kissinger, "IF YOU CONTROL THE OIL, YOU CONTROL THE NATION".

So, after a CENTURY controlled by That Standard Oil Monopoly over oil refining, Americans are so ignorant of other forms of pollution free energy such as The Hydrogen Economy, there is is just no hope left for humankind because the home grown population will not step out and mass protest Exxon out of business.

[aligatorhardt]

03:56 PM on 11/15/2011

Thank you for calling attention to the cleanest and most sustainable transportation and energy fuel--hydrogen from water, using renewable wind and solar power. Honda Solar Hydrogen Station Begins Operation | Hydrogen Fuel Cars and Vehicles Blog

The use of cheaper carbon nano-tube catalysts are testing out to provide similar output to expensive platinum catalysts, allowing hydrogen production to become economical. These advances are so close to being marketed, there is no sense in investing in dirty energy for transportation. Along with electric and natural gas cars and biofuel, transportation needs will be met without sacrificing our environment.

[newlook123]

03:41 PM on 11/05/2011

President Obama thinks the road to reelection will improve if he approves this project in December a 36-inch crude oil pipeline that would begin at Hardisty, Alberta and extend southeast through Saskatchewan, Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. It would incorporate a portion of the TransCanada‘s Keystone Pipeline through Nebraska and Kansas to serve markets at Cushing, Oklahoma before continuing through Oklahoma to a delivery point near existing terminals in Nederland, Texas to serve the Port Arthur, Texas marketplace.

[Donna Street]

03:17 PM on 11/05/2011

I guess we better get use to more polluting of this planet, they will just pass all this to future generations to clean up, if they can, who knows, by then it may be too late to clean it up. "Pass the buck if you can" has been going on forever!

[WESmith]

08:50 PM on 11/05/2011

We The People religiously pass the buck to the oil industry. Instead of saying. "The devil made me do it," we say, "Big Oil made me pollute the Earth." We Believe if we punish evil corporations for our environmental sins, we will be saved and the world will be saved.
And We The People can just go on polluting the world with no consequences.
Our main concern is cheap gasoline. Nothing else matters.

[Lucile S]

02:48 PM on 11/05/2011

Instead of replacing the broken pipeline by keeping it beneath the river they should have taken it off. The fact that Exxon didn't care about what local officials said shows us that they don't even try to make their fittings more reliable. And despite the flooding they won't change the way they do.

[plasmafxinternational1]

12:58 PM on 11/05/2011

WHISKEY, OIL, BEER, FOOTBALL, BABY BUSH LOVERS, HUSSEIN obama LOVERS, FONDLE YOUR IPHONES AND IPODS AND DONT LET GO. IM ASHAMED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE HUMAN POPULATION! DO YOU THINK ANY NEWS OUTLET HAS THE B_LLS TO TELL THE TRUTH?

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins.

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do.

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.

[artleads]

11:47 AM on 11/05/2011

So pipelines DO leak. A lot of posts claim that they don't.

[demisfine]

05:42 PM on 11/06/2011

They never show the leaking photos, just the gleaming, snaking ones.
Sometimes with swallows or eagles perched on top, looking majestic on a benign little pipeline.
Don't trust them with our most precious resource - nature.

[hanspij]

10:49 AM on 11/05/2011

Exxon payes?Lol. How can they pay?The ppl pay, not EXXON. Get those CEO's to pay and see what happends than.

[Vera Gottlieb]

10:27 AM on 11/05/2011

And will we live long enough to see Exxon pay anything? Payments for damage caused after the Exxon Valdez incident are still outstanding - after how many years???

[WESmith]

08:42 AM on 11/05/2011

We still have never found out who's oil this was. ExxonMobil Pipeline doesn't produce oil. They just transport it.
We The People spill more than 43,000 gallons (1000 bbls) of oil all over the US every month. Luckily for us, rain washes all of this oil, gasoline, diesel and antifreeze into the environment for us. But, be careful when there is a light rain. This oily sludge makes the roads very slippery.
Good thing oil is dead plants and animals and bacteria loves to eat it or we would be knee deep in oil pollution.

[CamelPaw357]

07:40 AM on 11/05/2011

This is pocket change to a CEO of Exxon Mobil. If they don't clean it up, and clean it up right, criminal sanctions must be imposed. These oil executives should be jailed.

[FaceReality2]

07:12 AM on 11/05/2011

Exxon will never clean it up properly, just as BP will never adequately clean up the Gulf. And the government won't make them. The government is allowing BP to drill more offshore wells in the Gulf right now.

[WESmith]

08:49 AM on 11/05/2011

In 2008, We The People made $28 billion selling our oil in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2009, we only made $9 billion. We know what happened in 2010. An inept government agency and an inept BP. Considering that our government collects three time this amount in taxes on oil, we are really losing money in the Gulf. What is the answer? The big oil corporations have left the US. All we have is 14,000 small oil businesses in the US anymore. It isn't really profitable to drill and produce in the US without large subsidies. Without subsidies, there is zero income and zero taxes collected on our oil. Kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[aligatorhardt]

03:59 PM on 11/15/2011

Major oil corporations declared over $100 billion in profits for 2010. Try another lie.