Keystone oil pipeline shut down after rupture in North Dakota

Jack Dura, Sarah Raza · The Associated Press

· Posted: Apr 09, 2025 12:00 PM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

The Keystone lipid pipeline was unopen down Tuesday greeting aft it ruptured successful North Dakota, halting the travel of millions of gallons of crude lipid from Canada to refineries successful the U.S. and perchance starring to higher gasoline prices successful the U.S.

South Bow, a liquid pipeline business, said it unopen down the pipeline aft power centre leak detection systems detected a unit driblet successful the system. The spill is confined to an cultivation tract successful a agrarian area, astir 100 kilometres southwest
of Fargo.

"The affected conception has been isolated, and operations and containment resources person been mobilized to site," the institution said. "Our superior absorption close present is the information of on-site unit and mitigating hazard to the environment."

The pipeline transported an mean 624,000 barrels per time successful 2024, according to the Canada Energy Regulator. It stretches 4,327 kilometres from Hardisty, Alta., to Texas.

The interaction connected Canadian crude producers volition beryllium connected however agelong the outage lasts, said Randy Ollenberger, caput of lipid and state probe astatine BMO Capital Markets.

"At this point, it's truly having minimal interaction connected dense lipid pricing," helium said.

Storage tanks successful Hardisty, southeast of Edmonton, person a batch of country to spare, and lipid tin beryllium diverted determination until Keystone is backmost up and running. Inventories had been drawn down pre-emptively up of imaginable U.S. tariffs, Ollenberger said.

"As agelong arsenic we don't person Keystone down truthful agelong that retention tanks commencement to capable up to capacity, it whitethorn not person much
interaction connected the market."

Prices astatine the state pump could emergence successful the U.S.

The pipeline's shutdown could rapidly pb to higher gasoline prices successful the Midwest, said Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice-president for vigor and innovation astatine the University of Houston.

It volition rise prices astatine the pump apt wrong 1 oregon 2 days, but volition person a greater interaction connected diesel and pitchy fuel, Krishnamoorti said. The Keystone pipeline transports a ample magnitude of a unique, dense crude that lone is disposable from constricted sources, helium said.

"The refineries tally connected blends of crude truthful that they tin get the merchandise enactment that they privation to deliver, whether it is gasoline, diesel, pitchy fuel, etc., and not having the proviso of dense crude is going to tilt their quality to marque diesel and pitchy fuel," helium said.

"They volition marque little of diesel and pitchy substance erstwhile they person little of the dense crude."

Higher diesel costs could pb to market terms increases due to the fact that diesel trucks transport those products, helium said.

The pb petroleum expert astatine gasoline terms tracker GasBuddy, Patrick De Haan, said that typically refineries person astatine slightest a fewer days' proviso of crude lipid connected manus that volition assistance insulate them from contiguous impacts from the shutdown. But if the pipeline is unopen for much than a fewer days oregon a week it could go problematic.

He said immoderate refineries successful the Great Lakes portion are besides served by different pipelines tally by Enbridge.

The pipeline was unopen down wrong 2 minutes of a 'bang'

It wasn't wide what caused the rupture of the underground pipeline oregon the magnitude of crude lipid released into the field. An worker moving astatine the tract adjacent Fort Ransom heard a "mechanical bang" and unopen down the pipeline wrong astir 2 minutes, said Bill Suess, spill probe programme manager with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality.

Oil surfaced astir 270 metres southbound of a pump presumption successful a tract and exigency unit responded, Suess said.

No radical oregon structures were affected by the spill, helium said. A adjacent watercourse that lone flows during portion of the twelvemonth was not affected but was blocked disconnected and isolated arsenic a precaution, helium said. The Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is sending a squad to analyse the origin of the leak.

Fort Ransom, a assemblage of less than 100 people, is successful a hilly, forested country of southeastern North Dakota known for scenic views and outdoor recreation. A authorities parkland and hiking trails are nearby.

It's unclear astatine what complaint the 80-centimetre pipeline was flowing, but adjacent astatine 2 minutes "it's going to person a reasonably good
volume," Suess said. "But ... we've had much, overmuch bigger spills," including 1 involving the aforesaid pipeline a fewer years agone successful Walsh County, N.D., helium said.

"I don't deliberation it's going to beryllium that huge," Suess said.

The pipeline has a past of past ruptures

The Keystone Pipeline was constructed successful 2010 astatine a outgo of $5.2 cardinal and carries crude lipid crossed Saskatchewan and Manitoba done North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri to refineries successful Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas. Though the pipeline was constructed by TC Energy, it is present managed by South Bow arsenic of 2024.

A projected hold to the pipeline called Keystone XL would person transported crude lipid to refineries connected the Gulf Coast, but it was yet abandoned by the institution successful 2021 aft years of protests from biology activists and Indigenous communities implicit biology concerns.

After a spill, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is liable for investigating the basal origin of the contented and immoderate deficiency of compliance. The agency, which regulates liquid and earthy state pipelines, mislaid respective senior-level executives earlier this twelvemonth arsenic portion of President Donald Trump's national cuts.

PHMSA did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

Bill Caram, enforcement manager astatine manufacture watchdog Pipeline Safety Trust, said the enactment already was "an under-resourced, underfunded agency."

"To suffer anyone volition person an interaction connected safety," helium said.

After the past large Keystone pipeline spill successful Kansas successful December 2022, sections of the pipeline were offline for a little
implicit 3 weeks earlier it resumed operating astatine a little pressure.

That spill of astir 13,000 barrels of lipid flowed into a creek traversing a pasture. An engineering consulting steadfast said the crook successful the pipeline astatine the tract had been "overstressed" since being installed successful 2010, apt due to the fact that of operation enactment altering the onshore astir the pipe. TC Energy said a faulty weld successful the line's crook caused a ace that exacerbated implicit time.

The Pipeline Safety Trust said this latest leak adds to the troubled past of the Keystone pipeline, which has had 13 important incidents successful the 15 years it has been operating.