Exxon Mobil said in a new court document that the proposed but abandoned Texas Access Pipeline would not have replaced the adjacent Pegasus pipeline, which ruptured in a Mayflower neighborhood last year.
Document set
Mayflower oil spill
- ExxonMobil final downstream data assessment report
- Central Arkansas Water letter to PHMSA
- Rudy Webb, et al v. Exxon Mobil Corporation briefing
- Exxon's response to Central Arkansas Water
- Central Arkansas Water letter to Judge Baker
- Exxon Mobil complaint
- Exxon Mobil consent decree
- Exxon Mobil Federal Agency Report
- Exxon responds to motion to disclose all oil spill docs
- Plantiffs' motion to Exxon Mobil
- Exxon Mobil petition
- Exxon Mobil remedial work plan proposal
- Exxon Mobil responds to lawsuit
- Mobil Pipeline Company respond to lawsuit
- Accufacts Major Issues Memo
- ExxonMobil Environmental Services Co. mitigation action plan
- Exxon Mobil's Pegasus pipeline remedial work plan
- PHMSA approves Exxon Mobil's plan to reopen part of Pegasus pipeline
- ExxonMobil DADAR report, revision 5
- ADEQ comments on ExxonMobil's final report
- Exxon fact sheet on Pegasus pipeline segments
- Downstream Areas Data Assessment Report
- Responses to ADEQ Comments
- Sheen monitoring report no. 8
- PHMSA responds to ADH letter
- June 3 letter from ADH to PHMSA, EMPCO
- ExxonMobil hearing request
- Letter: Griffin opposed to restarting Pegasus pipeline
- Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration updated report on Exxon spill
- ExxonMobil $2.6 million fine
- Rep. Griffin responds to McDaniel's letter
- McDaniel's letter to Rep. Griffin
- Mayflower mayor statement on spill 6 months later
- Confidentiality agreement between Exxon, CAW
- Notice of intent to file civil suit against ExxonMobil, PHMSA
- CAW's notice of intent letter to Arkansas officials
- Tim Griffin letter to Exxon Mobil
- Letter from ExxonMobil president
- ExxonMobil emergency response plan request letter
- Central Ark. Water 2010 letter to PHMSA
- 2010 Pipeline report: Doniphan-Conway
- 2010 Pipeline report: Conway-Corsicana (Part 4)
- 2010 Pipeline report: Conway-Corsicana (Part 3)
- 2010 Pipeline report: Conway-Corsicana (Part 2)
- 2010 Pipeline report: Conway-Corsicana (Part 1)
- Oil spill pressure test, Section 21
- Oil spill pressure test, Section 8
- Oil spill pressure test, Section 15
- Oil spill pressure test, Section 1
- Mayflower oil spill: Metallurgical report
- Pryor, Boozman, Griffin oil spill letter
- ExxonMobil responds to Arkansas officials
- Exxon Mobil's response to Rep. Markey letter
- Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration response to Rep. Markey letter
- Rep. Markey letter to Exxon
- Rep. Markey letter to Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
- Class-action suit against Exxon Mobil
- U.S.-Arkansas complaint against Exxon Mobil
- Exxon property purchase program
- Mayflower oil spill: Federal Corrective Action Order
- Mayflower oil spill clean-up response draft
- Mayflower oil spill: Exxon status maps for April 3-4
- Mayflower oil spill: April 4 cleanup assignments
- Mayflower oil spill: Wildlife task force assignments for April 3
- Mayflower oil spill: EPA report for April 2
- Mayflower oil spill: EPA report for April 3
- Mayflower oil spill: EPA report for April 4
- Mayflower oil spill: EPA report for April 7
- Mayflower oil spill: EPA report for March 31
- Mayflower oil spill: EPA report for April 1
- Mayflower oil spill: Incident status summary
- Mayflower oil spill: Wabasca heavy crude oil data
- Mayflower oil spill: Sampling and analysis plan
- Mayflower oil spill: Waste disposal plan
- Mayflower oil spill: Homeowner re-entry plan
- Mayflower oil spill: EPA report for March 30
- Lawsuit filed against Exxon Mobil in Mayflower oil spill
The Mayflower landowners who filed a class-action lawsuit against Exxon Mobil "appear to believe that the Texas Access Pipeline was intended as a replacement for the Pegasus pipeline. This is incorrect," attorneys for two of Exxon Mobil Corp.'s subsidiaries wrote in a brief filed in U.S. District Court.
Texas Access -- a roughly $3 billion project proposed in 2007 by Exxon Mobil and Enbridge Inc. -- "was never intended as a replacement for the Pegasus pipeline; instead, it was a proposed new pipeline to run alongside the Pegasus," the oil giant's attorneys wrote in response to the plaintiffs' demand for more information.
Marcus Bozeman, a Little Rock attorney for the landowners, countered Tuesday that "it's ridiculous to suggest that the Texas Access Pipeline was going to go side by side the Pegasus pipeline carrying the same oil from the same area to the same area."
"Exxon is saying that now because the thing blew up in the neighborhood," Bozeman said. "It's ridiculous. It's preposterous."
The proposed pipeline fell through after it didn't get enough shipping commitments from oil producers.
Bozeman has previously said the companies abandoned the plan for economic reasons and noted that Exxon Mobil increased the Pegasus pipeline's capacity by 50 percent in 2009.
The much-longer stretch of the Texas Access Pipeline would have had an estimated capacity of about 445,000 barrels of crude per day. That compares with the 66,000 barrels per day the Pegasus was transporting in 2008 and about 96,000 barrels per day in 2009.
Like the Pegasus, the Texas Access Pipeline would have carried Canadian crude from Patoka, Ill., to the Texas Gulf Coast. The new line, which originally would have opened in 2011, also would have had an 88-mile segment connecting it to Houston.
Attorneys for subsidiaries Mobil Pipe Line Co. and Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co. argued in their court brief, filed Monday, that they should not have to release any further information on the Texas Access Pipeline.
"That the defendants once considered building a new pipeline next to the Pegasus reveals nothing about the current condition of the Pegasus," the attorneys wrote. "Thus, the Texas Access Pipeline has no relevance to plaintiffs' claims in this case."
Bozeman said he believes "one reason" Exxon Mobil doesn't want to release that information is that it doesn't want to disclose information about replacing the Pegasus pipeline. He and other attorneys for the landowners still intend to prove that point when the case goes to trial in August.
The 850-mile Pegasus, built in 1947-48, split open in Mayflower's Northwoods subdivision on March 29, 2013, and spilled an estimated 210,000 gallons of heavy crude into the neighborhood, drainage ditches and a cove of Lake Conway.
Questions about the condition and the maintenance of the Pegasus have lingered since the accident, blamed on manufacturing defects -- specifically, seam cracks that worsened over the years. The industry has known for decades that the kind of pipe used in the Pegasus was susceptible to such cracks. That type of pipe no longer is made.
A federal regulatory agency has proposed fining Exxon Mobil more than $2.6 million for nine "probable" safety violations as a result of the accident. The company has appealed.
Exxon Mobil shut down the line shortly after the Mayflower accident and has restarted only a small segment in Texas.
In August, U.S. District Judge Brian Miller ruled that Arnez and Charletha Harper of Mayflower could legally represent people who currently own property that is subject to an easement for the Pegasus and that is physically crossed by the line.
The lawsuit seeks either cancellation of the easements and removal of the pipeline from the owners' property or a requirement that Exxon Mobil replace the line.
In its brief this week, Exxon Mobil argued that the lawsuit's "claims depend on the current condition of the Pegasus pipeline," not the condition long ago.
The brief also said Exxon Mobil has already employed more than 60 attorneys to review electronically stored information and, as a result, has turned over more than 200,000 documents, consisting of more than 800,000 pages, to the plaintiffs since January.
Company attorneys complained that the plaintiffs now want the process started over with a software program called "predictive coding -- a type of computer-assisted review -- in [defendants'] production of electronically stored information."
Bozeman said six attorneys -- four in Little Rock and two in New York -- represent the plaintiffs. A jury trial has been set for sometime during the week of Aug. 10.
A section on 12/31/2014