Keystone Pipeline was under stress for 12 years before Kansas oil spill, new report shows

December’s massive oil spill in rural northern Kansas may have been more than a decade in the making, a newly released third party report shows.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), which regulates oil pipelines in the U.S., released a partially redacted version of the 240-page report this week, more than six months after the spill.

In it, the engineering consulting group RSI Pipeline Solutions concludes that extreme external pressure from the surrounding environment caused the pipeline segment in question to deform over time, losing its round shape in a process called “ovalization.”

This pressure also exacerbated cracks in a faulty weld made in 2010, eventually causing the pipeline to burst.

The spill released nearly 13,000 barrels of a thick crude oil called diluted bitumen into the river just outside the city of Washington, Kansas.

It was the largest spill in the Keystone pipeline’s history, and larger than all its previous 22 spills combined. The spill killed more than 100 animals, and has taken six months to clean up.

On the heels of the report, the EPA announced Wednesday that the oil cleanup process is completed. TC Energy will now begin working to restore Mill Creek, a small nearby river that crews diverted during the cleanup effort, to its original condition.

So what caused the Keystone spill?

The spill was due to a combination of faulty welding and extreme pressure causing the pipeline to deform, the report states.

In December of 2010, pipeline operators TC Energy discovered quality issues with many elbow fittings along the Keystone Pipeline. The exact number of defective pieces is redacted in the report, but it says that the company replaced them all.

These new parts were sealed into place with a circular weld all the way around the pipeline called a “gird weld.” But at least one of these welds — at the junction where the pipeline eventually burst — had three weak points that slowly grew over the next 12 years.

Additional pressure from outside the pipeline worsened this structural flaw.

This wasn’t just normal pressure from the soil above the pipeline. Instead, significant land movement or heavy machinery may have caused the pipe to deform into an oval shape over time, said Richard Kupriewicz, an independent pipeline advisor who has testified before Congress on pipeline safety and has over 20 years of experience advising on pipeline operation and regulation.

“Just because you threw dirt over it, it doesn’t crush the pipe,” he said. “It can tolerate some loading (weight), but it wouldn’t necessarily cause the pipe to lose its roundness.”

A slightly deformed shape, external pressure, gaps in welding — none of these factors are unusual in pipelines around the country, he said. Alone, they’re typically not a cause for concern. But the combination can create a “perfect storm” and cause a significant spill.

“All those factors kind of came together,” Kupriewicz said. “(The segment) was under stress from day one.”

Could TC Energy have prevented the Keystone Pipeline oil spill?

Kupriewicz said it’s unlikely TC Energy knew about the growing cracks in the faulty weld. That’s because pipeline operators are only required to do x-ray testing on 10% of the welds holding the pipeline together — although he said some companies voluntarily inspect all of their welds in order to catch problems early.

However, the report shows that operators knew the pipe segment was deformed into an oval shape. During a 2013 inspection, the company obtained a specially redesigned inspection device called a “smart pig” after the oval shape of the pipeline segment damaged other tools sent through it.

“It’s not unusual to have a pipeline not be completely circular,” Kupriewicz said. “But to have it to such a point that you can’t get a pig through it, that’d be raising some questions.”

He added that while the company may not have been purposefully neglectful, issues with the segment were detected before the spill that could have helped prevent it.

“These multibillion dollar projects, it’s easy for the management team to lose control,” he said. “They may have the best of intentions, they may have procedures and all that. But are they actually being followed in the field?”

TC Energy told The Star that they had run an inspection tool through the faulty pipeline segment on the day of the spill and detected no leaks.

“Reports that we modified a Pipeline Inspection Gauge (i.e., PIG) to inspect the Cushing segment are inaccurate,” a media representative wrote in an email to The Star. “The tools selected were appropriate for the identified threats.”

The representative did not clarify whether they were referring to the inspection conducted on the day of the spill, or the one with the redesigned “pig” tool conducted in 2013.

Jane Kleeb, the founder of the environmental protection group BOLD Nebraska, said that there have been signs since its construction that the Keystone Pipeline is not structurally sound.

“There is no question given the amount of money, staff and technology that TC Energy has, that they knew these problems exist, and that they know these problems continue to exist,” she told The Star. “Citizens have essentially been the watchdogs and have been raising the flag at so many levels.”

Kleeb said landowners and activists in the area have long known that the pipeline was built using faulty steel and shoddy construction practices. But she said that PHMSA is so understaffed that its inspectors are only able to monitor around 5% of the pipelines they regulate.

Could an oil spill like this happen again?

The short answer is yes, but regulators are trying to find problem spots elsewhere in the Keystone Pipeline before they lead to spills.

PHMSA issued a corrective action order in March that instructs TC Energy to inspect and report back on any other pipeline spots with similar issues to the part that burst.

“We have also started a program to investigate other areas with similar attributes,” TC Energy told The Star. “Thus far, we have not found any similarities. We expect these activities to last throughout 2023 and into 2024.”

But some, like Kleeb, don’t trust the company to do its own inspections. She said she thinks PHMSA should run its own x-ray and “smart pig” testing on the entire length of the pipeline to identify structural issues, rather than waiting for TC Energy to self-report them.

“They’ve had three corrective action orders and 22 spills. That’s not normal for a pipeline of this age,” she said. “Not only has their pipe eroded, but their trust has eroded with the public and the people who live along this route.”

Do you have more questions about pipeline safety in Kansas or Missouri? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.