Exxon 30 articles

ExxonMobil will pay $5 million to settle claims brought against it by the U.S. and Arkansas governments stemming from its March 2013 Pegasus Pipeline oil spill that swamped an Arkansas community with thousands of gallons of heavy Canadian oil. Under the settlement agreement, ExxonMobil will pay $3.19 million to the U.S. in Clean Water Act penalties and $1 million in state civil penalties to Arkansas. The oil company will also devote $600,000 to a project geared toward improving water quality at Lake Conway, a reservoir affected by the spill, and pay the Arkansas Attorney General’s office $280,000 in legal fees. The ... Read More

Most of the 30,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the once-pristine Yellowstone River Jan. 17 from Bridger Pipeline’s breached oil pipeline will remain in the river, federal and Montana regulators said. Earlier this month, Montana Department of Environmental Quality spokeswoman Jeni Flatow told the Casper Star Tribune that they didn’t expect to recover much of the oil, even though a break-up of the ice was imminent. There was simply too much ice concealing the oil and making recovery near impossible. This week, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official Paul Peronard said that the response to the oil spill has ... Read More

ExxonMobil Corp. may go to trial in June to face pollution charges stemming from its March 29 oil spill that left an Arkansas community swamped in highly toxic tar sands crude. U.S. District Judge James Moody’s proposed schedule calls for the trial to start during the week of June 16. ExxonMobil faces a joint lawsuit filed by federal and Arkansas authorities seeking damages for its alleged violations of the U.S. Clean Water Act, the Arkansas Water and Air Pollution Control Act, and other federal and state anti-pollution statutes. Exxon’s Pegasus pipeline, a 70-year-old pipe that moves refined Canadian tar sands ... Read More

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Will County prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil Corporation after an equipment malfunction at the company’s Channahon Township refinery caused a release of hydrogen sulfide into the air that lasted nearly 10 hours. According to the complaint, the release started about 9 p.m. on March 1 and went undiscovered by refinery employees until approximately 6:45 a.m. the next morning. ExxonMobil notified the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, Will County emergency officials, and other state and federal agencies of the toxic release. Company officials told state regulators that a pressure relief valve failed at the ... Read More

ExxonMobil last week provided a copy of a metallurgical analysis to federal regulators detailing flaws in its Pegasus pipeline that researchers believe formed the root cause of the March 29 oil spill in Mayflower, Ark. But the oil giant is fighting to keep the information about recent inspections of the 850-mile pipeline out of the public eye, triggering concerns that the 70-year-old tube may have many more oil spills in store for those in its path. According to Fox 16 in Little Rock, “Six weeks before the spill happened ExxonMobil sent a piece of equipment through the line during a ... Read More

ExxonMobil has released information concerning the cause of a March 29 rupture in its Pegasus oil pipeline, which flooded a Mayflower, Ark., neighborhood and surrounding woodlands with more than a million gallons of dense Canadian tar sands oil. According to the oil company, an independent metallurgical analysis of the 70-year-old pipeline determined that original manufacturing defects formed the root cause of its failure. Those defects included small hook cracks near the seam where the breach occurred. “Additional contributing factors include atypical pipe properties, such as extremely low impact toughness and elongation properties across the … seam,” ExxonMobil said in a ... Read More

The U.S. Justice Department and the State of Arkansas have filed a joint lawsuit against oil giant ExxonMobil for violations to state and federal pollution laws involving its oil spill that flooded a community with highly toxic Canadian tar sands oil. ExxonMobil’s 70-year-old Pegasus pipeline ruptured in the residential neighborhood of Mayflower on March 29, 2013, releasing about 5,000 barrels of dense, sticky diluted bitumen oil made from Canadian tar sands treated with dozens of chemical additives. The 850-mile pipeline, which moves about 95,000 barrels of tar sands oil daily from Patoka, Illinois, to Nederland, Texas, ran about two feet ... Read More

When a tar sands pipeline owned by Enbridge ruptured in July 2010, John Bolenbaugh was one of the workers sent in to clean up the spill, which released more than a million gallons of heavy, highly toxic oil and chemical additives into the Kalamazoo River near Marshall, Mich. What Mr. Bolenbaugh experienced and witnessed compelled him to raise awareness of the dangers of tar sands oil and the Keystone XL Pipeline, a proposed project that would funnel billions of gallons of the tar sands or diluted bitumen “dilbit” through the middle of the U.S. According to the Arkansas Times, Mr. ... Read More

Mayflower, Ark., residents, including a number of children, are continuing to experience adverse health effects after ExxonMobil’s’s Pegasus pipeline ruptured, Dustin McDaniel, the state’s Attorney General said Tuesday. ExxonMobil’s pipeline breached on March 29, spilling about 5,000 barrels of highly toxic Canadian tar sands oil into a neighborhood and surrounding land. Mr. McDaniels said that town residents continue to suffer from headaches, nausea, and other adverse symptoms after more than a month after the spill. “As we met with residents and groups that represent them … I heard time and time again about their concerns for their health, especially the ... Read More

A new analysis of the hidden costs to society presented by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline estimates the damage to human health, property, the environment, and the climate could easily top $100 billion per year. The new report by Oil Change International comes on the heels of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analysis prepared for the State Department detailing the serious risks posed by the proposed pipeline, which would move thousands of barrels of highly toxic diluted bitumen (dilbit) oil through the middle U.S. from Canada to the Gulf Coast. The EPA’s sharp criticism of the plan was submitted to ... Read More