A pipeline in west-central Alberta, Canada, leaked crude oil into a large river system just as Plains Midstream Canada was close to finishing its cleanup of a big year-old spill in the province.
Plains Midstream, a unit of Houston-based Plains All American, said 1,000-3,000 barrels of light, sour crude — oil that has a high sulfur content — leaked from a 12-inch line on its Rangeland south system into a tributary of the Red Deer River, a large waterway that runs cross south-central Alberta.
Streamflows are high due to heavy rainfall and snow melt from the Rocky Mountains to the West, which will make cleanup tricky.
The company said it deployed booms at a reservoir that doubles as a resort area and has brought in drinking water for local residents as a precaution.
Plains shut down 6 miles of pipeline from the Rangeland system, an 83,000-barrel-a-day network that consists of 761 miles of gathering lines that move oil from production facilities and trunk lines that carry it to market.
According to Crude Quality Inc, which tracks refining characteristics of oil, the system moves mostly conventional light crude from fields in west-central Alberta to Edmonton-area refineries or to the U.S. border, where it connects with the Glacier pipeline system.
The company said the pipeline segment was not flowing oil when the release occurred. Crude market sources said they had not seen prices react to the incident.
“Immediately upon receiving notification of the release, Plains’ pipeline operations in the area were shut down and valves were closed to isolate area pipelines,” Plains said in a statement.
It said it is working with regulators and investigating the cause of the leak. It dispatched crews and aircraft to the scene near Sundre, a town of 2,600 people, located 80 miles northwest of Calgary.
Despite the sour crude’s strong odor, there is no health danger to the public, Plains said.
Last year, much of Plains’ 187,000-barrel-a-day Rainbow oil pipeline in northern Alberta shut down for four months after a rupture spilled 28,000 barrels of crude near a native community in late April. It was one of the largest spills in Alberta in decades.
The company said this month it was putting the final touches on reclamation efforts.