Traders expressed worry about how long Canada's TC Energy Corp would take to clean up the largest U.S. crude oil spill in nearly a decade and restart its Keystone oil pipeline after more than 14,000 barrels of oil leaked last week.
TC Energy shut the pipeline after the spill was discovered on Wednesday in Kansas. The company told officials in Washington County, Kansas, on Monday that they have not yet determined the cause and that they started excavating around the pipeline.
TC Energy and the county officials met briefly Monday to discuss efforts to contain and clean up the spill, a company official said. The meeting was "uneventful," lasting 13 minutes, said Dan Thalmann, owner of the Washington County News.
TC Energy provided no timeline on the cleanup, Thalmann said. The company told the county it was expanding efforts to vacuum oil from Mill Creek into trucks, he said.
Pictures of the site show a swath of oil that sprayed upward out of the pipeline onto a hillside. The oil spilled down a pasture north of Washington, Kansas, staining the grass, said Randy Hubbard, emergency preparedness coordinator for the county.
The Washington, Kansas, area includes farmers who raise grain, corn and cattle.
The affected segment of the line cannot resume operation until regulators approve a restart plan in its entirety, according to a U.S. Department of Transportation document.
TC Energy said on Sunday that it has more than 250 people working on the leak, including third-party environmental specialists. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and pipeline regulator the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) are also on the scene.
