TC Energy to cut Oct volumes on Keystone oil pipeline after force majeure

TC Energy Corp will cut crude volumes flowing through the Keystone oil pipeline for the rest of October after declaring force majeure due to a snowstorm in Manitoba over the weekend, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The company is expected to cut volumes entering the Keystone pipeline from Canada by about 20% for the rest of this month, two of the sources said.

TC Energy did not immediately comment on the volumes.

The timeline for a return to full operations is unknown, company spokesman Terry Cunha said on Wednesday, as the province is trying to restore power to thousands of people affected.

TC Energy declared force majeure on shipments on its 590,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Keystone oil pipeline after the storm knocked out power to three to four pump stations in Manitoba, sources said on Wednesday.

The Keystone pipeline system is a critical artery taking Canadian crude from northern Alberta to refineries in the U.S. Midwest.

The outage is also likely to disrupt flows on TC Energy’s 750,000 bpd Marketlink pipeline, which connects Cushing, Oklahoma, to Nederland, Texas, traders said. However, the majority of the disruption is expected to be for flows into Cushing rather than the U.S. Gulf Coast, traders said.