Keystone Leak Worse Than Thought

[winston53660]

A leak in the Keystone pipeline is worse than first believed, spilling much more oil than first reported.
Nearly 17,000 gallons of oil has leaked in South Dakota since Saturday, pipeline owner TransCanada says – up from the 187 gallons the company initially reported to federal authorities.
TransCanada has "yet to pinpoint the source," the company told CNN Money, but it maintains the leak has been "controlled," and a section of the pipeline was shut down after the spill was discovered.


The leak was not reported by the Keystone pipeline's spill detection system, but instead was discovered by a passerby, according to Chris Nelson, chairman of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission.
Keystone Pipeline Leak Worse Than Thought - US News

Oooops :3oops:

 

[OrphanSlug]

The news seems to be all over the place on this...

"TransCanada estimates about 400 barrels of oil, or just under 17,000 gallons, spilled onto private land during the leak, the duration of which the company says is unknown. Federal regulators sent the company an order Saturday that said an "anomaly" on a weld on the pipeline was to blame for the leak, but the cause wasn't immediately determined. When a third-party metallurgist hired by TransCanada discovered the leak, it was releasing oil at a rate of about two drops per minute.

State Department of Natural Resources environmental scientist Brian Walsh said oil contaminated only the nearby soil and not any waterways or aquifers. Tainted soil was removed and work will continue to restore the site, Cooper said. The two directly affected landowners will be compensated for their time and any damages, he said."

TransCanada Resumes Oil Shipments Through Keystone Pipeline - ABC News

 

[Socrates1]

A leak in the Keystone pipeline is worse than first believed, spilling much more oil than first reported.
Nearly 17,000 gallons of oil has leaked in South Dakota since Saturday, pipeline owner TransCanada says – up from the 187 gallons the company initially reported to federal authorities.
TransCanada has "yet to pinpoint the source," the company told CNN Money, but it maintains the leak has been "controlled," and a section of the pipeline was shut down after the spill was discovered.


The leak was not reported by the Keystone pipeline's spill detection system, but instead was discovered by a passerby, according to Chris Nelson, chairman of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission.
Keystone Pipeline Leak Worse Than Thought - US News

Oooops :3oops:

aren't they all worst than reported , no surprise ! :roll:

 

[Thoreau72]

Just like the big leak in the Gulf, they are always worse than initially reported.

 

[humbolt]

17,000 gallons sounds like a lot, and it's nothing to sniff at, but realize that such a volume is roughly the same as the cubic footage of an average living room. 17,000 gallons is about 2,273 cubic feet. You can do the math.

 

[justabubba]

17,000 gallons sounds like a lot, and it's nothing to sniff at, but realize that such a volume is roughly the same as the cubic footage of an average living room. 17,000 gallons is about 2,273 cubic feet. You can do the math.

it would cover 5 acres assuming an oil height of 1/8 inch per square foot

 

[humbolt]

it would cover 5 acres assuming an oil height of 1/8 inch per square foot

The maximum volume of a typical tanker truck is 11,600 gallons, so the spill equals about 1.46 tankers in volume. No leak is good, but this is hardly noteworthy other than the fact that they had a very small leak and it wasn't immediately detected. The lack of detection is more troubling than the leak itself.

 

[justabubba]

The maximum volume of a typical tanker truck is 11,600 gallons, so the spill equals about 1.46 tankers in volume. No leak is good, but this is hardly noteworthy other than the fact that they had a very small leak and it wasn't immediately detected. The lack of detection is more troubling than the leak itself.

that and that they misjudged the magnitude of the leak - substantially

 

[humbolt]

that and that they misjudged the magnitude of the leak - substantially

The problem may be that their leak detection just isn't sensitive enough to notice a leak this small. It's not substantial. However, if the leak happened to be in your back yard, you'd certainly have a different opinion of it's magnitude. My understanding of oil pipeline deliveries is that prescribed volumes of oil are delivered and the volume is separated by water in the pipeline. One would hope that missing volume would be immediately noticed, and perhaps it is. I don't know enough about the actual methods employed at Keystone to determine such things, so I'll have to leave it as an unspecific detection problem unless someone more familiar with their protocols weighs in here.

I should also add that understating such problems doesn't lend credibility to the producers.

 

[Mr Person]

A leak in the Keystone pipeline is worse than first believed, spilling much more oil than first reported.
Nearly 17,000 gallons of oil has leaked in South Dakota since Saturday, pipeline owner TransCanada says – up from the 187 gallons the company initially reported to federal authorities.
TransCanada has "yet to pinpoint the source," the company told CNN Money, but it maintains the leak has been "controlled," and a section of the pipeline was shut down after the spill was discovered.


The leak was not reported by the Keystone pipeline's spill detection system, but instead was discovered by a passerby, according to Chris Nelson, chairman of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission.
Keystone Pipeline Leak Worse Than Thought - US News

Oooops :3oops:

I wonder how much cleanup costs are going to be vs. the amount American citizens made building that portion of the pipeline (if it was American citizens doing it...)



Never liked the deal. We should be nice to allies, but it always seemed like we weren't getting much benefit vs. the constant spill leak risk we were running.

 

[beerftw]

A leak in the Keystone pipeline is worse than first believed, spilling much more oil than first reported.
Nearly 17,000 gallons of oil has leaked in South Dakota since Saturday, pipeline owner TransCanada says – up from the 187 gallons the company initially reported to federal authorities.
TransCanada has "yet to pinpoint the source," the company told CNN Money, but it maintains the leak has been "controlled," and a section of the pipeline was shut down after the spill was discovered.


The leak was not reported by the Keystone pipeline's spill detection system, but instead was discovered by a passerby, according to Chris Nelson, chairman of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission.
Keystone Pipeline Leak Worse Than Thought - US News

Oooops :3oops:

Some heads will roll for this, And it will most likely be the welding inspectors who gave it a go. Even the greatest welders make mistakes, or even make welds that look perfect but have poor penetration. With high pressure pipelines and any pipelines with haxmat materials, they have welding inspectors.

They usually use things like xray tests to check for defects in a weld between pipes, if it fails they cut it out and weld it again or start over with new pipe. If it is leaking like that, someone seriously failed at their job, likely just rubber stamping them without looking. In automotive we get alot of the same, for example brakes get checked on a semi, then fail the next day. the dot goes and checks the records and finds the guy who checked them checked 42 other trucks that day and realizes it is impossible to thoroughly check that many trucks in one day. In that case those none of the coworkers ever saw him that day, and all signs lead to pencilwhipping.

 

[justabubba]

Some heads will roll for this, And it will most likely be the welding inspectors who gave it a go. Even the greatest welders make mistakes, or even make welds that look perfect but have poor penetration. With high pressure pipelines and any pipelines with haxmat materials, they have welding inspectors.

They usually use things like xray tests to check for defects in a weld between pipes, if it fails they cut it out and weld it again or start over with new pipe. If it is leaking like that, someone seriously failed at their job, likely just rubber stamping them without looking. In automotive we get alot of the same, for example brakes get checked on a semi, then fail the next day. the dot goes and checks the records and finds the guy who checked them checked 42 other trucks that day and realizes it is impossible to thoroughly check that many trucks in one day. In that case those none of the coworkers ever saw him that day, and all signs lead to pencilwhipping.

curious
do the welding inspectors draw a paycheck from the contractor?
would the contractor save money by not having to perform a lot of needed re-work if the welding inspector was not performing his job?

 

[beerftw]

curious
do the welding inspectors draw a paycheck from the contractor?
would the contractor save money by not having to perform a lot of needed re-work if the welding inspector was not performing his job?

Weldng inspectors either work directly for the company, for a contractor, or can be independantly contracted. Welding inspectors especially in union jobs make mega bucks too because it is a high risk high reward job. Imagine make 50 an hour at a pipefitters union, you sign off on someones weld, then a week later the pipe bursts at that weld losing lets say a thousand barrels before it is shut down, plus the massive cost of cleanup plus the epa up that companies ass for eternity. In said scenario that guy would never find work in that field again.


From what I have read though, the keystone problem has two issues, one there are claims of whistleblowers complaining about subpar welds for a while, something that does not fly with high pressure pipelines. The other is the fact they used pipes made in india, which were known to blow out well below their claimed psi due to metal inconsistancy, and the company still used them anyways. Seeing the latter, it would not surprise me if they had mountains of complaints about their welds and their pipes, and chose to meet their deadline instead and deal with the costs when they arrive.