TransCanada's Keystone I Oil Pipeline Restarts After 'Mechanical Issues'

BISMARCK, N.D. -- A pipeline that carries tar sands oil from Canada through seven states was temporarily shut down for "mechanical issues," the pipeline's owner said Wednesday.

TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone pipeline, which brings oil from Canada's Alberta province to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma, was shut down following a power outage Tuesday, spokesman Terry Cunha said. The pipeline was restarted Wednesday morning and company officials were working to find the cause of the problem, he said.

"There was no spill – none," Cunha said in an email. "We will work to make up deliveries this month and expect no further interruptions."

Crude began flowing through the 2,148-mile-long, $5.2 billion pipeline last year. It's designed to carry crude oil across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri on the way to refineries Patoka, Ill. and Cushing, Okla. The line is capable of handling 591,000 barrels a day.

The shutdown came as the Calgary-based company seeks to build the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas. The proposed 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline has drawn opposition from people who fear it will harm the environment. The U.S. State Department is considering whether to approve the project.

The original Keystone pipeline was shutdown in May, after it spewed more than 14,000 gallons of oil in southeastern North Dakota, near the South Dakota border.

TransCanada blamed the spill on a failed fitting at a pumping station and said it was stopped nine minutes after being by monitors and reported by a nearby resident. Most of the spill was contained by a berm around the pumping station, but some oil mist had to be cleaned from standing water in a nearby field, the company said.

Together, the Keystone and the Keystone XL would be about five times the length of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. The massive pipeline network is designed to move 1.5 million barrels of Canadian oil daily to U.S. refineries.

Comments

[no exit]

10:46 AM on 11/10/2011

Keep those bast*rds out of our country!

[Lucile S]

09:25 AM on 11/10/2011

Have you seen it? More than 14,000 gallons of oil that has leaked in only 9 minutes. And we're told it was a minor problem.

[Robert Lee Harrington]

07:19 PM on 11/09/2011

Cornell GLI Study Finds Keystone XL Pipeline Will Create Few Jobs
2,500-4.650 temporary construction jobs
The project budget that has a direct impact on U.S. employment is between $3 and $4 billion or about half of what industry claims.
50% or more of the steel pipe, the main material input used for Keystone XL, will be manufactured outside of the U.S.
Jobs will be temporary and between 85-90% of the people hired to do the work will be non-local or from out of state.
The Perryman study, which estimates around 119,000 (direct, indirect and induced) jobs is a poorly documented study commissioned by TransCanada.
Job losses would be caused by additional fuel costs in the Midwest, pipeline spills, pollution and the rising costs of climate change. Even one year of fuel price increases as a result of Keystone XL could cancel out some or all of the jobs created by the project.
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/globallaborinstitute/research/upload/GLI_KeystoneXL_Reportpdf-2.pdf

[lop7693]

06:42 PM on 11/09/2011

Obama says he wants to create jobs, well here is 50,000 and he is putting a stop to it. Reason? they are not govt jobs. The dems want all of us dependent on them so they can treat us like slaves. The foot prints of comunism are trying to spread across the land.

[Lucile S]

09:28 AM on 11/10/2011

50,000 jobs? Where?

[lambdin1]

06:43 PM on 11/09/2011

Another BP disaster waiting to happen! Isn't one enought?!?

[Robert Lee Harrington]

07:22 PM on 11/09/2011

“Why Are People Worried?

Multiple reports of ruptures in pipelines that carry dilbit have raised concerns about its safety. Most dramatic was the July 2010 Enbridge Energy pipeline leak, which dumped 843,000 gallons of dilbit into the Kalamazoo River. The cleanup operation has so far involved more than 2,000 personnel, 150,000 feet of boom, 175 heavy spill response trucks, 43 boats and 48 oil skimmers. The cost is expected to exceed $700 million.

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20111101/keystone-xl-oil-sands-pipeline-diluted-bitumen-dilbit-secret-chemicals-corrosion-spill-­enbridge”

[ur2nutty4me]

06:17 PM on 11/09/2011

Gee.... I can't see that being a number one target to be attacked at whim by any group or crack pot.

Just get the Hell off oil............................