Report Shows TC Energy Was Aware of Problem with Keystone Pipeline Nearly a Decade Before Oil Spill

By Gordon Hopkins According to the recently released report about last year's Keystone Pipeline failure, TC Energy, the company formerly known as TransCanada, was aware there was an issue with that section of the pipeline years before the rupture that dumped an estimated 12,937 barrels of crude oil being released into Mill Creek, three miles east of Washington, Kansas, on December 7, 2022.The issue in question is described in the report as “ovality,” meaning that portions of the normally round, 36-inch diameter pipeline, had become oval-shaped. As a result, an inspection tool could not get through the pipe. The company's response was to redesign the tool rather than address the pipe's change of shape.The ReportA 240-page report was prepared by RSI Pipeline Solutions, an independent engineering consulting company. A copy of the report was made available to the public on May 15 of this year. However, the report was substantially redacted by TC Energy. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) does allow for certain exceptions. The redactions are currently under review by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).Operation HistoryThe Keystone Phase 2 pipeline system, referred to as the Cushing Extension, was built between April 2010 and November 2010 by TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, LP. The Cushing Extension consists of approximately 298 miles of 36-inch diameter by 0.465-inch nominal wall thickness line pipe, four pump stations throughout Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and a tank terminal facility in Cushing, Oklahoma.Steele City is the location of a major junction for the Keystone pipeline, which splits, one branch running east for deliveries into Wood River and Patoka, Illinois, and the other branch running south into Keystone Phase 2 for deliveries into Cushing, Oklahoma.PHMSA defines “affected segment” as the approximately 96 miles of the Keystone Pipeline from Steele City Pump Station to the Hope Pump Station in Dickinson County, Kansas. The “affected segment” traverses Jefferson County Nebraska, Washington County Kansas, Clay County Kansas, and Dickinson County Kansas.Operations commenced in February of 2011.Inline Inspection ToolAccording to the report, TC Energy has regularly inspected the affected segment with “ILI (Inline Inspection) technologies” since operations began. In December of 2012, an ILI tool first identified the ovality, which prevented the ILI tool from properly traversing the pipe. A portion of the pipeline was excavated in March of 2013 to evaluate the extent of ovality.According to the report, “While the excavation was still open, discussions occurred between the Pipe Integrity team and ILI vendor about how best to proceed.”In the end, “the vendor agreed that they could navigate the feature with a tool redesign,” which would allow the tool to navigate the pipe but did not address any structural issues resulting from ovality. The report notes, “Yet, this focus may have caused the Pipe Integrity team and senior management to overlook a potential concern of added stress on the elbow and its possible impact to future integrity.”The Day of the SpillThe report indicates an ILI was in use the da o the spill. A representative of TC Energy told FJN, “As part of our Integrity Program, we routinely run inline leak detection tools through the system and routinely conduct other inline and visual monitoring, using the latest technology. On the day of the incident, we had ran a leak detection tool through the Cushing Segment and no leaks were found. At the time of the incident, the tool had passed the failure location. Further, the Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) confirmed that the passing of the tool was not a factor to this incident.”

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