Wall Street Journal Investigation: High-Tech Oil Pipeline Monitors Catch Less Than 20 Percent of Leaks

Last September, a farmer harvesting wheat in North Dakota smelled crude oil in his fields.  That was the first indication anyone had that a Tesoro pipeline had ruptured and spewed some 20,000 barrels of oil into the environment.

Tesoro says it has beefed up its monitoring of the pipeline, as the pressure sensors it had installed before the spill did not detect the slow seep of oil, even though it had soaked a surrounding area the size of six football fields.

This may sound like an outlier case, but as it turns out, it is pretty much the industry standard.  According to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, it is all too common that oil companies are the last to know when their pipelines spring a leak.

Wall Street Journal Investigation:  High-Tech Oil Pipeline Monitors Catch Less Than 20 Percent of Leaks