• 3 minutes e-car sales collapse
  • 6 minutes America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide
  • 11 minutes Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  • 57 mins GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES
  • 6 days If hydrogen is the answer, you're asking the wrong question
  • 7 hours How Far Have We Really Gotten With Alternative Energy
  • 10 days Biden's $2 trillion Plan for Insfrastructure and Jobs
Self-Heating Concrete Paves the Way for Easier Winters

Self-Heating Concrete Paves the Way for Easier Winters

Drexel University researchers successfully tested…

TotalEnergies’ South Africa Ambitions: Wise or Risky?

TotalEnergies’ South Africa Ambitions: Wise or Risky?

Why would TotalEnergies be risking…

EU and Turkmenistan Eye New Energy Partnerships

EU and Turkmenistan Eye New Energy Partnerships

Turkmenistan's Foreign Minister announces an…

Nick Cunningham

Nick Cunningham

Nick Cunningham is an independent journalist, covering oil and gas, energy and environmental policy, and international politics. He is based in Portland, Oregon. 

More Info

Premium Content

Why The Latest Keystone Spill Is Disastrous For Canadian Oil

Canadian Oil

The Keystone Pipeline was shut down this week after it ruptured and spilled in North Dakota.

TC Energy – formerly known as TransCanada – said on Wednesday that it shut down the 590,000-bpd line after it detected a drop in pressure. “TC Energy immediately began the process to shut down the pipeline, activated its emergency response procedures and dispatched ground technicians to assess the situation,” the company said.

The company did not specify whether the entire pipeline was shut down or just a portion. “At this time there is no indication that it has impacted anybody’s drinking water,” said Karl Rockeman, director of the division of water quality for North Dakota's health department, according to local press reports. “It appears to (be) contained within the area.”

The repair and cleanup could take as long as two to three months, according to Reuters.

The pipeline runs from Alberta to refineries in the Midwest and is a crucial conduit for Canada’s oil industry. The prospect of an outage helped depress prices for Western Canada Select (WCS), which fell relative to WTI ever-so-slightly on Wednesday. WCS is trading below $38 per barrel, or about $17 per barrel below WTI.

This is not the first time that the Keystone Pipeline has spilled. In November 2017, the pipeline ruptured and spilled more than 200,000 gallons in South Dakota. The pipeline was offline for weeks.

The latest spill is yet another reminder that while the industry trumpets pipelines as the safest way to move oil, spills are not exactly a rarity. “We don’t yet know the extent of the damage from this latest tar sands spill, but what we do know is that this is not the first time this pipeline has spilled toxic tar sands, and it won’t be the last,” Catherine Collentine of the Sierra Club said in a statement. “We’ve always said it’s not a question of whether a pipeline will spill, but when, and once again TC Energy has made our case for us.” Related: Oil Production Paralyzed As Venezuela's Electricity Crisis Worsens

There are hundreds of significant incidents with pipelines each year, a term that encompasses injuries, fatalities, highly volatile liquid releases or monetary damages. For instance, there were 636 such incidences in the U.S. in 2018, and 647 the year before, according to data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).

Another high-profile spill is grist for the mill for environmental groups and landowners opposing the Keystone XL. After all, the same company presiding over spills from the older Keystone pipeline is the one that has spent years trying to convince communities that the Keystone XL Pipeline won’t spill. Multiple incidents from the older pipeline does not inspire confidence.

For Canada’s oil industry, any lengthy interruptions to midstream capacity would be another blow. In 2017, the last time the Keystone Pipeline went offline due to a spill, WTI prices jumped and Canada’s WCS fell sharply. A few weeks after the outage, WCS prices descended to about $30 per barrel as some Canadian oil struggled to find an exit from the country.

The sector has been struggling with years of inadequate takeaway capacity, which have periodically depressed WCS prices to low levels. At the start of this year, Alberta implemented mandatory production cuts in order to relieve the localized glut and boost prices. The policy has largely worked, with WCS prices rising significantly. Related: The U.S. Just Doubled Its Natural Gas Exports

The cuts have been lifted gradually over the course of the year. On Thursday, Alberta announced another increased allowance for oil producers who are shipping crude by rail. “The special allowance program will protect the value of our oil by ensuring that operators are only producing what they are able to move to market,” Alberta’s energy minister Sonya Savage said in a statement. “Pipeline delays ultimately have constrained market access and dampened investment in our oil sector.”

ADVERTISEMENT

In yet another sign of trouble for the industry, Encana Corp announced on Thursday that it would rebrand itself and move to the United States, the latest example of a multi-year exodus and capital flight out of Canada. “A domicile in the United States will expose our company to increasingly larger pools of investment in U.S. index funds and passively managed accounts, as well as better align us with our U.S. peers,” Chief Executive Officer Doug Suttles said in a statement. Encana will soon be known as Ovintiv Inc.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:


Download The Free Oilprice App Today

Back to homepage





Leave a comment
  • Jonathan Flesher on November 01 2019 said:
    time for Alberta to become the 51st state
  • Albert Ryles on November 04 2019 said:
    WCS is going to crater. The low price is not because of rail, but rather trying to sell more and more to one customer (the US). So now they decide to sell even more to the US by using rail? Price will go below $30 guaranteed. Alberta would do much better by stricter curtailment limits until they can sell oil to countries other than the US

Leave a comment




EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News