Adds further details, price impact.
The shut down of the 622,000 b/d Keystone pipeline heads into its sixth day with no word from operator TC Energy on a timeline for the restart.
An investigation into the cause of the pipeline breach in rural Kansas which led to a 14,000 bl spill is still underway by the company and regulators, which have deployed 250 personnel to handle the cleanup.
A prolonged outage may put pressure on crude prices and lead some refiners expecting oil from the line to begin curtailing output. Today the outage pushed West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude at Houston, Texas, to a discount to the light sweet crude futures contract at Cushing, Oklahoma, for the first time in 14 months.
Flows on the pipeline were halted on 7 December when pressure readings indicated a leak, which spilled crude into a creek near Washington, Kansas. The breach was south of Steele City, Nebraska, where another section of the line splits off to deliver crude to Illinois. That section of the pipeline was still offline earlier today, according to TC Energy, which did not provide any time line for a restart.
The spill remains contained and vacuum trucks and booms have been deployed at the site. Air quality monitoring is also ongoing and so far there have been no indications of adverse health impacts.
Before it is allowed to restart, the operator will have to first satisfy conditions laid out by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). Even then, the pipeline will only be able to run a maximum 80pc of its operating pressure until the pipeline regulator permits a return to regular service.
Keystone originates in Hardisty, Alberta, and includes more than 2,600 miles (4,184km) of pipelines delivering crude to key market hubs including Patoka, Illinois, Cushing, Oklahoma, and Port Arthur, Texas.
