Could Earthquakes Have Contributed To Oil Spill?

By Gordon HopkinsCould earthquakes have contributed to the Keystone Pipeline oil spill in Kansas last year? That is a question posed by lawmakers at a hearing of the Kansas Legislature held Tuesday, March 14, in which Gary Salsman, TC Energy Vice President, Field Operations, answered questions.The 2,687-mile Keystone Pipeline System transports up to 622,000 barrels of crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Midwest and the Gulf Coast. The oil leak dumped an estimated 12,937 barrels of crude oil into Mill Creek, three miles east of Washington, Kansas, and approximately 20 miles south of Steele City, on December 7, 2022. The Steele City facility is a key junction for the pipeline. At the hearing, State Representative Jerry Stogsdill asked, “Obviously the spill was in the far north central part of the state but in the far south central part of the state, there’s been a variety of well documented small earthquakes down there. Does your pipeline run through that area? And if so, does that require any specific or exceptional engineering or installation requirements for handling something like that?”“That’s probably a question beyond my capabilities,” said Salsman. “But I’d say that when we design a pipeline, we take all of those factors into consideration and I would think that was part of our design criteria in that area. We do look at seismic areas as we’re routing pipelines and look into that, but I can’t specifically answer that question, but I will get back to you on that.” In July of 2022, FJN reported on a series of earthquakes that hit the Nebraska-Kansas border that month. The strongest was a magnitude 3.7 earthquake hit Jewell County, Kansas, at 7:51 a.m. on July 17.On Thursday, February 9 of this year, TC Energy released the initial findings of an investigation into the cause of the leak, blaming the failure on a weld flaw and bending stress, “We have advanced our root cause investigation with the completion of an independent mechanical and metallurgical analysis of the failed pipe. The analysis concludes that the failure occurred due to a combination of factors, including bending stress on the pipe and a weld flaw at a pipe to fitting girth weld that was completed at a fabrication facility.” TC Energy also noted, “The metallurgical analysis identified no issues with the strength or material properties of the pipe or manufactured fitting. The pipeline was operating within its operational design and within the pipeline design maximum operating pressure.”This is not the final result, however. TC energy indicates the investigation in ongoing.On Tuesday, March 7 of this year, the U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued an Amended Corrective Action Order, identifying a number of actions TC Energy must take. One of those corrective actions is an Evaluation of Geohazard Program (EGP). The order states, “The evaluation must determine if land movement may have contributed to the loading and stresses on the pipeline at the failure location.”Salsman would not say if seismic activity had any impact, “I would say it’s too early to speculate, since we don’t have the root cause failure analysis whether land movement was a contributing factor to this particular incident.”

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