TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A pipeline operator has put a damaged section in Kansas back into service, a little more than three weeks after a spill dumped 14,000 barrels of crude oil into a creek.

Canada-based T.C. Energy announced Thursday that it had completed repairs, inspections and testing on its Keystone pipeline in northeast Kansas. The company said that allowed for a controlled restart of the section from near the Nebraska-Kansas line to northern Oklahoma.

The 2,700-mile Keystone system carries heavy crude oil from western Canada to the Gulf Coast and to central Illinois.

The spill occurred Dec. 7 in Washington County.