An oil leak in the Keystone pipeline has halted the transport of nearly 600,000 barrels of oil per day between Canada and the US, according to operators TC Energy Corp.
The company confirmed release of oil into a creek in Washington County, Kansas, approximately 20 miles south of Steele City, Nebraska after alarms and a detected pressure drop in the system went off around 8pm Central Time on December 7.
Keystone is a critical link between Canada’s vast oil fields and the transport hubs in the US Midwest and Gulf Coast.
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“We are proceeding to make appropriate notifications, including to our customers and regulators and will work cooperatively with third parties to effectively respond to this incident,” TC Energy said in a statement.
The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose as much as 4.8% before paring gains, trading at $72.44 around midday Thursday in New York.
In contrast, heavy crudes such as Western Canadian Select (WCS) in Canada declined by $4.70 a barrel, according to data from Bloomberg, as the outage threatens to back up more Canadian crude in the Hardisty area.
TC Energy did not specify when the pipeline might be operational again.
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