Last year’s Keystone Pipeline shutdown was due to bending stress on a pipe and a weld flaw, company says

By Joe Sutton and Aya Elamroussi, CNN

A leak of nearly 13,000 barrels of crude oil from the Keystone Pipeline near the Kansas-Nebraska border last year was caused by a flawed weld and stress on the pipe from being bent, the operator said.

The massive spill, equating to more than 540,000 gallons of oil, shut down the pipeline in December as its Canadian operator TC Energy investigated the cause of the leak in a Kansas creek.

“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 said in a news release Thursday.

The operator explained that a weld flaw caused a crack in the pipe that continued to get worse over time because of stress and fatigue from bending, eventually leading to the sudden rupture of the pipe.

“The cause of the bending stress remains under investigation as part of the broader third-party root cause failure analysis,” TC Energy said.

TC Energy noted that the investigation entailed the completion of an independent mechanical and metallurgical analysis of the failed pipe.

The metallurgical analysis did not find issues with the strength or material properties of the pipe or manufactured fitting, the company added.

“The pipeline was operating within its operational design and within the pipeline design maximum operating pressure,” TC Energy said.

The spill, which leaked into a creek in Washington County, Kansas, cost about $480 million in clean-up efforts, TC Energy said.

In the meantime, the operator said it’s making progress on its remediation plan, including analysis of other areas and additional in-line inspections.

The Keystone Pipeline, a 2,700-mile system that can transport more than 600,000 barrels of oil per day, delivers mostly Canadian oil to major refineries across America.

The Keystone Pipeline has experienced leaks in the past, including one in South Dakota in 2016 and another one in 2019 in North Dakota that impacted nearly five acres.

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CNN’s Matt Egan contributed to this report.