Pipeline politics

1 April 2013 By Christopher Swann

Environmentalists reckon an Arkansas leak bolsters their case against the Keystone pipeline. Proponents point to a recent train crash to show other ways of ferrying crude are accident-prone, too. What counts is keeping such risks to a minimum. On that score, Keystone looks sound.

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Exxon Mobil is cleaning up a pipeline spill that discharged thousands of barrels of heavy Canadian crude in Arkansas.
Exxon’s Pegasus pipeline, which can carry more than 90,000 barrels per day of crude from Patoka, Illinois to Nederland, Texas, was shut after the leak was discovered on March 29 in a subdivision near the town of Mayflower. The leak forced the evacuation of 22 homes.
Exxon had no estimate of how much crude oil had spilled, but the company said on March 31 12,000 barrels of oil and water had been recovered, up from 4,500 barrels the day before. The company did not say how much of the total was oil and how much was water.
On March 27 a Canadian Pacific Railway train derailed, rupturing three tankers and leaking around 15,000 gallons of fuel.

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