An estimated 3,500 barrels of crude oil spilled into an agricultural field in North Dakota after a Keystone Pipeline employee heard a “mechanical bang” from the system early Tuesday morning, managing company South Bow said.
More than 200 people have been deployed to the site for oil recovery and remediation, South Bow said. A damaged section of the pipeline remains isolated. Officials previously said that a small stream near the area was not affected, but has also been isolated.
As of Thursday, 700 barrels of oil, or about 20% of the amount spilled, had been recovered, the company said, adding that the system remained shut down.
An employee on a pump station along the pipeline heard a “bang” Tuesday morning, spill investigation program manager with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality Bill Suess told CBS News. South Bow, a liquid pipelines business that has managed the Keystone Pipeline since 2024, said control center leak detection systems detected a pressure drop in the system and initiated a shutdown and response around 7:42 a.m. It’s not clear what caused the issue.
Crude oil, which the pipeline carries from Canada to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma, spilled into an agricultural field south of the pump station, Seuss said. South Bow said the incident took place at milepost 171, near Fort Ransom, a small outpost about 80 miles from Fargo.
South Bow said Thursday that “continuous air quality monitoring has shown no indication of adverse health or public concerns currently,” and that personnel are conducting “around the clock air and environment monitoring.”
The company is working with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Association and the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality as the cleanup efforts continue.
An investigation into what caused the spill is also underway, South Bow said.
“We have not established a timeline for restart and will only resume service with regulator approvals,” South Bow said. “Our primary focus remains on the safety of onsite personnel and mitigating risk to the environment.”
The Keystone Pipeline went online in 2011. It runs through North Carolina, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. The crude oil it carries goes to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma. A proposed extension that would have brought crude oil to the Gulf Coast was shut down in 2021 after years of protests.
The pipeline has had at least three significant spills since 2017, CBS News previously reported. The largest spill was in 2022, when an estimated 14,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into a creek in Kansas.
