An ExxonMobil pipeline broke on Friday evening, dumping thousands of gallons of tar sands oil in Mayflower, Arkansas. The Pegasus pipeline starts in Illinois and carries 95,000-barrels of oil per day from Alberta’s tar sands to refineries in Texas.

Exxon was cagey, at first, about giving an estimate of how much spilled, initially telling reporters it was “a few thousand” barrels or declining to give an estimate. In an interview with Inside Climate, a local official gave an estimate of 2,000 barrels (or 84,000 gallons). When I asked for a specific figure on the number of barrels spilled, this is what I got from Charlie Engelmann, a media relations adviser for Exxon Mobil Corporation:

A few thousand barrels of oil were observed in the area; a response for 10,000 barrels has been undertaken to ensure adequate resources are in place. Approximately 12,000 barrels of oil and water have been recovered. Crews are steam cleaning oil from property.

That’s still not a very specific answer. This actual figure is something that people will want to know, given that the spill is igniting even more debate about pipeline safety in general and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in particular.

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