Canada's TC Energy has shut the Keystone pipeline after one of the largest onshore spills saw 14,000

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

barrels leak into a Kansas creek

Canada's TC Energy has shut the Keystone pipeline — which connects Alberta to the US — after 14,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into a creek in Kansas.

Pipe operator TC Energy announced the pipeline's shutdown at 5.35 a.m. CT on Thursday. The Canadian company said it initiated an energy shutdown and response at 8 p.m. CT on Wednesday after alarms went off detecting a pressure drop in the system.

The cause of the leak is not known. It is not immediately clear as of presstime when the pipeline is expected to come back online.

The affected segment of the Keystone pipeline system "has been isolated" and remains shut, the company said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/canada-s-tc-energy-has-shut-the-keystone-pipeline-after-one-of-the-largest-onshore-spills-saw-14-000-barrels-leak-into-a-kansas-creek/ar-AA155cJA

[Wounded Bear]

1. A pipeline leaking. Who'd a thunk?

[EX500rider]

2. Other transport modes like truck and train also have issues.

I'd guess a higher spill chance per barrel + every 14,000 barrels would be over 700 semi truck loads, that's a lot of truck pollution Vs a pipeline.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. I Get Your Point, But...

...your tank truck number seems high.
14,000 barrels is 588,000 gallons. Tank wagons have 5,000 gallon tanks, but are limited in the US to 80,000# gross weight. So, to accommodate the weight of the tractor & wagon are target at 45,000#.
Now, dewatered crude is around 7.2#/gallon, so we'd really only get around 35,000# in a tank truck. So I get more like 165 trucks.
For rail, just divide by 4, so roughly 41 railcars.
We do concur that the likelihood of 165 trucks, or 41 tankcars spilling 100% of their contents at one time is pretty remote, compared to a pipeline springing a leak at full flow.

[EX500rider]

11. Yeah my numbers were off I must have missed a decimal point

However per million gallons transferred I'm going to assume the accident rates higher by rail car and truck then pipeline since pipelines don't really get in accidents as they are stationary. And that's not including the extra pollution in the atmosphere by the locomotive and tractor cab combustion.

[Demanchor]

3. Could this be part of the substation attacks?

[jmowreader]

4. I don't think so

The crude Keystone carries is really corrosive. It'll eat through a steel pipe given the chance, and the whole Keystone pipeline is steel pipe. Plus, it's not the first leak Keystone has suffered.

[Prairie_Seagull]

5. Have you ever noticed,

When a website gets breached and peoples personal info get copied/taken, the website always releases information with the wrong quantity quoted. They appear to always make a serious mistake on the low side, of course.

Now this is not website traffic, its oil and I have a suspicion.

These being Canadians, i hold out hope, but it is a oil pipeline. Lets see which one wins.

I'll bet I can guess.

[Prairie_Seagull]

13. Now 26,000 barrels. (just short of double)

Wow, I'm so surprised, will there be a tertiary increase?

[gratuitous]

6. If they're admitting to 14,000 barrels spilled

It's probably in excess of 20,000. Sort of like when a guy gets pulled over for drunk driving. "Oh, I had three beers over three hours, Osshifer." Probably a six pack or more and in less than two hours.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. They Better Not Be Shorting It

It would take 20 seconds for an EPA investigator to calculate the loss by pressure drop × time.
The pipeline engineers could do it just as easily.
The EPA doesn't look favorably on intentional "miscalculations".

[panader0]

9. Are these oils sand oil from Canada? If so, I read that they corrode pipes much faster than

deep pumped oil. Enlighten me Prof.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. I Believe That's Correct

As I understand it, the bitumen in sand oil is high in sulfur compounds & sulfur/oxygen compounds.
Given it's high in water, some degree of sulfurous acid probably forms.
This isn't as aggressive an acid as sulfuric, but actually is harder on carbon steel.
Sulfuric acid at 50-108% is stored in carbon steel tanks and last decades. Sulfurous acid isn't heavily used in industrial chemistry so I don't know how aggressive it is on steel, other than coupon studies. (I worked on a process back in the 80s that had a need for a 2 stage scrubber. The first stage was just a counterflow water absorber (gas/liquid). The next neutralized it to potassium sulfite which was air oxidized to harmless potassium sulfate.
We did coupon studies on the first stage fluid and it wasn't benign to carbon steel, especially at stress points like a weld.
P.S.-The company (TC) is a Canadian company so yeah, this is most certainly those sand oils.
So, that's a long winded way of saying I wouldn't be surprised that inside/out corrosion was an ongoing concern

[panader0]

12. thanks

I knew I could count on you.