Where pipelines mean money and jobs

Almost everyone in Hardisty Alta. depends on the movement of oil to earn a living

In B.C., the new NDP government is wrestling with the power it now has to stall or stop the controversial Trans Mountain Pipeline that would deliver oil from Alberta’s tarsands to tankers on the West Coast bound for Asia.

Premier John Horgan campaigned against it. Environmental activists have vowed to stop it anyway they can. Municipal politicians are threatening to withhold local permits.

But in Hardisty, a small town in eastern Alberta, the other side of the oil pipeline debate is on full display.

Almost everyone in Hardisty, as well as other towns in the region, depends on the efficient movement of oil to points south, east and west to earn a living.

Just last week, work quietly got underway on the US$7.5 billion replacement of Enbridge’s 1,660 km Line 3 pipeline that is expected to ship 760,000 barrels of oil a day to refineries in the U.S Midwest — the largest project in Enbridge’s history.

The influx of workers will more than double Hardisty’s population of 550 souls for the next few months.

Given all the controversy that surrounds construction of new oil pipelines these days, one huge earth moving machine rumbling back and forth over wild grass and brush and a few guys digging a hole for a marker with an ordinary shovel, was about as low key as the repaving of a country road.

But appearances can be deceiving. There is nothing low key about this new oil pipeline or all the other pipelines, rail and truck terminals, and dozens of oil storage tanks that have made Hardisty one of North America’s key oil transportation hubs.

Other controversial oil pipeline proposals — Keystone XL and Energy East — are also set to begin in Hardisty. They would be in addition to several other pipelines that flow in and out of the area full of oil extracted from oilsands operations around Fort McMurray, about 630 km to the north.

Hardisty is also where 25 million barrels of oil can be stored in dozens of gleaming white tanks, some topped with metallic geodesic domes, before heading into the United States, making it the largest tank farm in Canada.

That storage capacity means Hardisty is also an oil trading hub. The taps can be quickly turned on or off depending on the price that traders can fetch in the fluctuating oil market south of the border.

Hardisty is also home to the largest oil train terminal in Canada. Operated by Houston-based USD Group, the new terminal can load up to two 120 railcar trains per day and send them almost anywhere via CP Rail connections.

Hardisty’s mayor, Anita Miller, told me it’s been slow in Hardisty the past few years because the low price for oil meant petroleum and pipeline companies were reluctant to start new projects or expand current facilities.

But with the replacement and expansion of Enbridge’s Line 3, which will stretch from Hardisty, across Saskatchewan and all the way down to Superior, Wisconsin, Miller says about 500 workers have arrived already.

They will boost business for the town’s hotels, restaurants, bars, gas stations, and campgrounds, as well as pad their own bank accounts with money earned from building the pipeline.

“The economy is slowly coming back,” said Miller, who besides being Hardisty’s mayor is the office administrator for Gibsons Energy, one of Hardisty’s largest employers. “I don’t see demand for our oil slowing down any time soon.”

About 99 per cent of Canada’s oil production currently goes to the United States, with much of it going right through Hardisty. In 2016 those crude oil exports to the U.S were worth about $50 billion.

In B.C., particularly on the coast, oil pipelines, storage tanks, and tankers are seen as vehicles of possible catastrophe. People fear that a leak or spill from any of them could ruin neighbourhoods, land, and water.

In Alberta, oil pipelines are seen as lifelines, a method of conveyance for a resource worth billions of dollars. In Alberta, extracting and moving oil to market means wellpaying work and the opportunity to prosper.

Pity the politicians who must sort all this out and try to keep happy as many people as possible.

It’s no easy task.