NorthAmOil: Keystone back online

While the proposal of a major new bill grabbed headlines last week, NorthAmOil also covered the resumption of operations at a major cross-border pipeline after almost a week of shutdown.

The Keystone pipeline, which carries crude from Canada’s oil sands to the US, resumed normal service on July 23 following a reduction in capacity that had resulted from damage to a third-party electric substation.

The damage was attributed to vandalism at a transformer at an East River Electric Power Cooperative substation in South Dakota that services Keystone. It resulted in the pipeline’s operator, TC Energy, declaring force majeure on July 18. The company did not specify by how much it had reduced the pipeline’s capacity while repairs to the transformer were completed.

A criminal investigation was reported to be underway into the damage to the transformer.

Keystone has a capacity of 590,000 barrels per day (bpd) and continued to transport oil following the incident, albeit at a reduced capacity. Owing to the short-lived nature of the disruption, pricing impacts were reported to be limited.

On July 28, TC Energy reported net income of $900mn for the second quarter of 2022, down from net income of $1.0bn in 2021. The company said the Keystone system had delivered nearly 610,000 bpd during the second quarter after bringing around 30% of contracts from its 2019 open season into service, effective from April 1. Additional volumes are anticipated between now and the end of the year, TC Energy added.