Alberta oil spill larger than Michigan spill in 2010: regulator
By Scott Haggett and Jeffrey Jones, ReutersMay 3, 2011
Oil floats near a boom as workers using suction hoses try to clean up an oil spill of approximately 800,000 gallons of crude from the Kalamazoo River July 28, 2010 in Battle Creek, Michigan. Regulators said on Tuesday that about 28,000 barrels of oil spilled from a rupture of a Plains All American Pipeline pipe in Alberta last week, making the spill more than a third larger than the one in Michigan.
Photograph by: Bill Pugliano, AFP/Getty ImagesCALGARY — Regulators said on Tuesday that about 28,000 barrels of oil spilled from a rupture of a Plains All American Pipeline LP PAA.N pipe in Alberta last week, making the spill more than a third larger than the one that fouled a Michigan river system in 2010.
Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board said most of the oil that spilled from the Rainbow Pipeline on Friday was contained on the right-of-way and on stagnant pools of water near the site of the breach. No one lives within 7 km (4 miles) of the break.
The affected area is being fenced off and no oil has escaped from the site, the regulator said.
Davis Sheremata, an ERCB spokesman, said the spill is the largest in the western Canadian province since 1993, when a line owned by BP Plc BP.L spewed about 19,000 barrels.
The Board, which regulates pipelines in Alberta, will investigate how long oil was spilling from the ruptured pipe and whether Plains has adequate controls in place.
"The control systems for the line, whether they were working and whether they were working as well as they could are going to be part of the investigation," he said.
The line carries about 187,000 barrels of oil a day from Zama in northwest Alberta 770 km (480 miles) south to Edmonton. The leak occurred 100 km (62 miles) northeast of Peace River, Alberta.
Oil market sources said the leak was having minimal impact on Canadian crude prices.
In a major incident last summer, Enbridge Inc's ENB.TO
Line 6B ruptured near Marshall, Michigan, spilling 20,082 barrels of heavy Canadian crude into the Kalamazoo River system.
U.S. regulators kept the line shut for nine weeks as Enbridge conducted a battery of tests. The spill, which forced several families from their homes, made pipeline safety a national issue and prompted authorities to consider tighter regulations.
Plains said it expected to complete repairs to the Rainbow line by the end of the week, though regulatory approvals will still be needed before it is allowed to restart.
Company officials could not be reached for comment.
Investigators at the site are still working to expose the damaged section of pipeline to see how big the breach of the line is and figure out if it was detected as quickly as it should have been, Sheremata said.
Plains, which bought the pipeline from Imperial Oil Ltd IMO.TO, Exxon Mobil Corp XOM.N and Royal Dutch Shell RDSa.L in 2008, has said it is investigating the cause of the rupture. The line is operating south of the break, carrying about half the usual volume of oil.
The April 29 incident was the second leak for an Alberta pipeline in a week. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners's KMP.N
300,000 bpd Trans Mountain oil pipeline was shut for five days beginning on April 22 after a small leak was spotted on the line's right-of-way 150 km (93 miles) west of Edmonton.
Dan Woynillowicz, director of strategy and communications for the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank, acknowledged the incidence of pipeline ruptures in Alberta has decreased in recent years. However, the industry's rapid expansion plans and aging of existing infrastructure increase vulnerability to spills, Woynillowicz said.
"This is happening at a time when the Alberta government is very actively advocating for the Enbridge Gateway pipeline to the West Coast and the Keystone XL Pipeline into the U.S., both of which are controversial pipelines where there is significant concern along the routes about pipeline safety," he said.
"This certainly isn't going to ease those concerns given the scale of this spill, how long it took for there to be disclosure (of volume of oil spilled) and people still don't know the extent of the impacts."
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