Trans Canada seeks rethink on Keystone route

CALGARY TransCanada Corp. has asked the Nebraska Public Service Commission to reconsider its order that approved an alternative route for the company’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline through the state.

Company spokesman Terry Cunha says TransCanada is not, however, asking for the approved route to be reconsidered and that the motion is a request to address some questions raised in the decision. The company is seeking a “clarification” on the PSC’s Nov. 20 decision, a spokesman told Reuters.

Cunha declined to provide details on which questions TransCanada wishes to address, saying by email that they are part of the firm’s ongoing review of the commission’s decision and its impact on the project’s cost and schedule.

In the motion, dated Nov. 24, TransCanada asks the commission to consider its amended application in support of its request that the order be reconsidered.

Nebraska regulators approved an alternative to TransCanada’s preferred route on Nov. 20 that adds about eight kilometres to the length and shifts it further east away from sensitive ecological areas. The PSC voted 3-2 to approve a route for TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline through Nebraska, removing the last major regulatory obstacle for the long-delayed project backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, but leaving its future shrouded in legal and market uncertainty.

TransCanada chief executive Russ Girling said in a statement last week that the company would review the commission’s decision to assess the impact on the project’s cost and schedule.

Meanwhile, according to documents reviewed by Reuters, TransCanada’s existing Keystone pipeline has leaked substantially more oil, and more often, in the United States than indicated in risk assessments the company provided to regulators before the project began operating in 2010.

The existing 3,455-kilometre Keystone system from Hardisty, Alta., to the Texas coast has had three significant leaks in the U.S. since it began operating in 2010, including a 5,000-barrel spill on Nov. 16 in rural South Dakota, and two others, each about 400 barrels, in South Dakota in 2016 and North Dakota in 2011.

TransCanada said Monday it plans to restart operations on its Keystone pipeline on Nov. 28 after making repairs to a leak that spilled about 795,000 litres of crude oil in South Dakota. It says U.S. regulators have cleared its restart plans., which include restarting the pipeline at a reduced pressure before gradually increasing the volume of crude oil in the system.