B.C. facing natural gas shortage, pain at pump after pipeline rupture
British Columbians should brace for a possible loss of natural gas service and soaring gasoline prices after an Enbridge natural gas line ruptured north of Prince George.
Natural gas supplier Fortis BC has asked one million customers to lower their thermostats and limit other gas use as much as possible while the damage is repaired. About 700,000 homes in northern B.C., the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island could temporarily lose gas service altogether.
The pain will extend to the gasoline pumps as well, with prices expected to break $1.60 a litre by Friday and $1.65 by Saturday in Metro Vancouver.
Stephanie Valois of Quesnel is concerned that pipes could freeze and burst if cold sets in before gas service is fully restored, but she’s even more concerned about her neighbours.
“I’m worried for all the people that are going to freeze if gas service stops,” she said. “Not everyone has a fireplace or electric heaters.”
Temperatures were forecast to hit -3 C in Quesnel overnight.
Her four kids are away this week, so Valois has shut all the bedroom doors, turned the thermostat down and pulled out an oil heater to make up the difference.
When the kids come back, they will need an electric heater for every room.
“It’s (2 C) right now, so it’s not too bad, but it’s going to get colder,” she said. “I can’t imagine how people farther north will be able to cut back.”
Raelene Belcher will fire up the electric fireplace and turn down her thermostat, but it’s too cold to shut down her gas furnace.
Overnight temperatures in Chetwynd have already hit -5 C this fall.
“I have two young boys that I won’t let get too cold,” she said. “I’ll shower my kids every second day for now and myself, too, but my husband has to shower every day as he is a welder and gets pretty dirty at work.”
If the gas runs out completely, things may get chilly with no heat or hot water.
“We don’t have a real wood stove, so we would have to pack up and go to a friend’s place or buy some more electric heaters, I guess,” she said. “It’s too cold here to be turning off anything.”
Fortis-BC is working to bring in more gas from Alberta through the Trans-Canada gas line.
Doug Stout, Fortis-BC’s vicepresident of external relations, said Wednesday 85 per cent of the gas his company feeds to homes and businesses is carried by the twinned pipeline that runs from northern B.C. to the United States border south of Vancouver.
The wholesale price of gasoline surged on the Pacific Northwest commodity market on news that Royal Dutch Shell and Phillips 66 were shutting down gasoline refinery units in Washington after losing their supply of natural gas. Natural gas is used to power the refining process.
The Enbridge pipeline supplies about half of the natural gas used in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
The Parkland gasoline refinery in Burnaby has “curtailed” operations, but has not yet shut down any processing units, according to company spokesman Kel Coulson. Parkland supplies about 25 per cent of the Lower Mainland’s gasoline and as much as a third comes from Washington refineries, said analyst Dan McTeague of Gas Buddy.
“Curtailed production inevitably leads to higher prices at the pump,” he said. “By Friday, you will see prices up to $1.619 a litre.”
Wholesale gasoline shot up US9.3 cents a gallon by the end of trading Wednesday and another 13 cents in after-hours trading, McTeague said.
“That’s another four cents a litre to us,” he said.
“Hang on to your hats. Unless something changes in the next couple of days, we could see prices hit $1.659 a litre on Saturday.”
Near Prince George, one of the two Enbridge lines ruptured and exploded, but the second line has also been shut down while it’s being checked for damage, said Stout, prompting Fortis to warn of “decreased energy flow and potential loss of service.”
Stout urged another 300,000 customers in the Okanagan and southeastern B.C. to conserve, even though their natural gas comes from Alberta.
“We are asking them to cut back, too, because we can flow some of that gas past them and down here to the Lower Mainland. So we are asking everybody to chip in,” said Stout.
Fortis has reserves still in the pipeline south of Prince George, in its liquefied natural gas storage tanks in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island and there is some gas flowing from Alberta through a pipeline in southern B.C., Stout said.
No one was hurt when the fireball lit up the sky near the community of Shelley and forced about 100 members of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation from their homes.
An evacuation order had been downgraded Wednesday to the handful of homes near the explosion site.
Witness Terry Teegee said the blast shook the area at about 5:30 p.m.
“We thought it might have been a train crash or a low-flying jet,” he said.
Zachary Semotiuk said he saw a “huge flash” followed by a “raging fire” that was easily visible above the treeline from several kilometres away.
Chief Dominic Frederick with the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation said Enbridge contacted him shortly after the blast.
“They had told me there was a gas building up in the underground. For some reason or another, the gas had stopped flowing and it built up and it just exploded,” Frederick said.
The Enbridge website describes its nearly 2,900-kilometre natural gas pipeline as capable of “transporting approximately 55 per cent of the gas produced in the province” and being “the backbone of B.C.’s natural gas industry since 1957.”
The problems could also affect supply to homes in Washington.
The damaged Enbridge pipeline connects to the Northwest Pipeline system, which feeds Puget Sound Energy in Washington and Northwest Natural Gas in Portland.
Puget Sound Energy had already issued a notice on social media urging its 750,000 natural gas customers to lower their thermostats and limit hot water use at least through Wednesday, a warning Fortis-BC’s Stout seconded.
“There is a potential impact on Seattle and north of Seattle,” he said.