ETP Suggests Possibility That Diesel Fuel in Spilled Drilling Mud May Have Been Sabotage
From Reuters:
Energy Transfer Partners LP said on Friday sabotage or an accident might have caused diesel to get into drilling fluid that spilled into an Ohio wetland during construction of its Rover natural gas pipeline, but opponents of the project disagreed with the sabotage theory.
U.S. energy regulators banned ETP from new horizontal directional drilling in May until the company explains how diesel, prohibited under its permit, got into 2 million gallons of drilling fluid that spilled into the Tuscarawas River wetland.
Environmental agencies are probing whether ETP's contractor may have used diesel to lubricate the drill to make it easier to cut through rock when crossing large obstacles like highways and rivers.
ETP said it did not believe the contractor used diesel.
"Rover theorizes that these diesel concentrations could have been caused by an inadvertent and unreported spill or leak from equipment operating during the clean-up, or it could have been the deliberate or malicious act of individuals opposed to the project," the company told FERC in a filing Friday, noting the data was inconclusive.Click right here to read more.
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