I wanted to give you an update on the cleanup from the Pegasus pipeline, operated by ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, which caused the oil spill near Mayflower, Arkansas, late last week.

Let me start by saying what we’ve told members of the Mayflower community – and the entire state of Arkansas – how sorry we are and how much we regret that this incident took place. And contrary to some reports surfacing today, ExxonMobil is paying for the cleanup and will honor all valid claims by affected residents and businesses.

In the days since the accident, we have worked with local, state and federal authorities to clean up spilled oil to reduce the environmental impact and assist residents who have been impacted.

ExxonMobil now has more than 550 workers in the area and is making progress. We are working around the clock and we will continue our cleanup effort until the job is complete.

The U.S. crude oil and petroleum products pipeline system is a critical part of the country’s energy infrastructure, moving vital products from locations where they’re produced to the markets where they’re consumed – to drive our cars, heat our homes and power our economy.

The network of pipelines is about 200,000 miles long – more than four times longer than our interstate highway system. The system moves some 30 million barrels of oil and petroleum products every single day.

Pipelines are the safest way to transport oil and gas. This is important to remember as the news of our pipeline accident comes up in the debate over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Also important to remember is that claims that crude from the Canadian oil sands is more corrosive and destructive to pipelines are not true. Studies have shown no pipeline releases of oil sands crude– also known as diluted bitumen – caused by internal corrosion.

That shouldn’t be surprising because diluted bitumen has the same chemical properties as heavy crude oils from California, Mexico and Venezuela, all of which have been successfully transported by pipeline in the U.S. for the past 40 years.

Let me say it again – the pipeline breach in Arkansas is regrettable.

We will work with the Department of Transportation to investigate the cause and determine what happened to apply anything we learn to future operations to reduce the risk of reoccurrence.

When working to ensure operational integrity, our goal is to manage risk to avoid these kinds of incidents. But it is also important that if they do occur, we have the competency and the capability to respond and a process to integrate lessons learned into future operations.

That is our commitment.