California oil spill: Plains defends safety record

Following last week’s California pipeline leak, Plains All American Pipeline has downgraded the amount of oil it says spilled in a worst-case scenario. The company said the estimate of the worst-case volume of oil released was up to 101 000 gallons – about 4200 gallons less than previously believed.

Plains All American is still cleaning up the spill along the Santa Barbara County coastline and recovering oil from the pipeline, so the calculations are not final.

"We're pleased with our safety record," Plains All American CEO Greg Armstrong told NBC News in his first one-on-one interview since the spill.

Armstrong said that pipelines are the safest ways to move oil and "99.999%" of the billion barrels of oil that his company delivers each year have been transported safely. He said the company always tries to do better, though.

"We're striving for zero incidents, so while we're way up to the third or fourth decimal point before we ever have an incident, when it happens, it's obviously not good, we're not happy with it," he said.

The cause of the spill is still unknown. Christopher Hoidal, the Director of Pipeline Safety for the Department of Transportation, said last Friday that an inspection carried out in early May might reveal the problem that caused the spill and determine other "anomalies" in the pipe.

More than 50 anomalies were found in the pipeline during two previous inspections in 2007 and 2012, according to the DOT.

Edited from various sources by Elizabeth Corner

Sources: The Guardian, NBC News

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