Las autoridades de Montana dijeron que hubo un derrame de cerca de 1,000 barriles de petroleo de Exxon Mobil al rio Yellowstone. La linea de petroleo ha sido cerrada.
Exxon: Crude Leaked Into Yellowstone River
By BEN LEFEBVRE and ANGEL GONZALEZ
HOUSTON -- Montana authorities estimate that about 1,000 barrels of crude have leaked out of an Exxon Mobil Corp. pipeline into the Yellowstone River, a state official said Saturday. The pipeline has been shut down.
Tim Thennis, a spokesman for the Montana Disaster and Emergency Services division, provided that initial estimate. He added that although no cause of the spill has been determined, it's possible that heavy flooding affecting that part of the U.S. could have played a part. Thennis said that flooding is also interfering with the clean-up effort, meaning the oil could reach the Missouri River, of which the Yellowstone is a tributary, making the task even more difficult for emergency responders. Montana emergency officials have notified officials in North Dakota that the oil could be heading their way, Tennis said.
"There's no way to capture [the oil] right now," Thennis told Dow Jones Newswires. "The further it spreads the more difficult it becomes."
The Texas-based oil giant said it discovered the leak early Saturday morning. Exxon said it "deeply regrets this release" and that it is working with local authorities to mitigate the impact. The leak took place in a 12-inch crude pipeline that runs from Silver Tip, Mont., to Billings.
The incident comes amid heightened concerns about pipeline safety stemming from natural gas pipeline explosions across the U.S., and from a major spill in July 2010, in which 20,000 barrels of oil escaped from an Enbridge Energy Partners LP pipeline in Michigan.
The Exxon leak started sometime late Friday, with crude oil having traveled 80 miles downstream by 1 p.m. local time and in some places settling on the shore line, said Custer County Disaster and Emergency Services Coordinator James Zabrocki.
"I'm sure the bulk of the oil is going to go to the Missouri River," Zabrocki said.
The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration said it would have no information available until an agency investigator reached the spill site.
The Silvertip crude pipeline originates in the Wyoming-Montana border and delivers oil to Exxon's 60,000 barrel-a-day Billings refinery, which sits adjacent to the Yellowstone River. The facility processes crude oil from Wyoming and Alberta, Canada into gasoline and ultralow-sulfur diesel, according to the Exxon's Web site. A refinery spokesman couldn't be immediately reached.
The pipeline occasionally brings oil to CHS Inc.'s 60,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Laurel, Mont., but CHS has been able to use its own Front Range pipeline to feed the refinery, company spokeswoman Lani Jordan said.
Exxon said it doesn't yet know what caused the incident, and is still trying to determine how much oil was released. "We recognize the seriousness of this incident and are working hard to address it," the company said.
Emergency officials had called for residents along the river to evacuate their homes early Saturday morning as word of the leak spread, said Diane Guy, a supervisor at the Yellowstone County 911 center. The evacuation order has since been lifted, Guy said.
Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, undertook a major effort to improve its safety and emergency response practices after the shipwreck of one of its tankers, the Exxon Valdez, unleashed a giant oil spill in Alaska's Prince William sound in 1989. More than two decades after the accident, which resulted in costly legal fights and an overhaul of federal oil pollution laws, the Exxon Valdez spill remains a sore point for Exxon and the oil industry.
Write to Angel Gonzalez at
angel.gonzalez@dowjones.com
