Calls growing for probe of aging pipeline system
Recent spills highlight ongoing risk
Amid the chaos on the conference floor of this week’s Global Petroleum Show, Ron Laidman of Shawcor was touting his company’s latest polymer technology to modernize pipelines in the field.
Pipelines were a big topic of conversation throughout the show because, at the same time, hundreds of workers were busy cleaning up after a rupture in a 46-year-old pipeline dumped up to 3,000 barrels of crude oil into the Red Deer River system.
The river is the source of drinking water for 90,000 people in central Alberta farm country.
In northern Alberta, workers are also mopping up at Rainbow Lake after a pipeline leak by Pace Oil & Gas spilled 5,000 barrels. It’s the same area where Plains Midstream had released 28,000 barrels last year in one of Alberta’s biggest spills.
It was a Plains pipeline that ruptured June 7 southwest of Red Deer.
“Unfortunately, it can take things like a failure to actually cause a change,” said Laidman, who was promoting Shawcor’s corrosion-prevention coatings, which address integrity concerns of aging pipelines.
Two spills in as many months increased talk about the safety and reliability of the 400,000 kilometres of pipelines that criss-cross Alberta.
The issue is politically sensitive with the proposed Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines from Alberta’s oilsands now attracting significant attention from environmental groups. Within hours of the latest spill, Alberta Premier Alison Redford was on site, pronouncing it an unfortunate but rare event.
With the Energy Resources Conservation Board listing 531 oil or gas spills in 2010 in Alberta, environmentalists questioned the comment that spills “don’t happen very often.”
There are growing calls for an independent probe of the network that will be relied upon to carry Alberta’s fast-growing volumes of crude
Increasing production volumes are straining existing pipeline infrastructure ROGER SWIERSTRA, IRIDIUM RISK SERVICES
from the oilsands.
“I really don’t trust the companies to be accurate in what they are reporting and (I) think we need an independent review,” said Mike Hudema of Greenpeace.
The pipeline grid, the backbone of Canada’s $50-billiona-year oil and gas industry, headquartered in Alberta, fans out across 700,000 kilometres, supplying liquid fuels and natural gas across the country and into the U.S.
Concern about the network buried a metre or two below the ground extends well beyond Alberta.
This month, Saskatchewan auditor general Bonnie Lysyk warned that a quarter of the pipelines in the province were at least 40 years old.
“We think that aging pipelines would naturally increase the risk that there is a potential leak or an explosion,” she said. Last December, the federal commissioner of environment and sustainable development said Ottawa is failing to monitor and enforce its own regulations on pipelines.
Yet, across Canada, dangerous products are transported every day by road, rail, ship and air.
Brenda Kenny, president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, whose members yearly move about 1.2 billion barrels of oil and 5.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, touts statistics that show pipelines are the safest way to move oil and gas. Spills from pipelines in Canada amount to two litres for every million litres that are transported, Kenny said. It would take 5.5 million tanker trucks to replace the pipeline network, she claimed.
“Can you imagine our roads? Talk about safety issues,” she said.
The ERCB points to decreasing rates of spills in Alberta: 1.7 failures per 1,000 kilometres of pipeline in 2009 and 2010, compared with 2.1 failures in 2007 and 2008.
Redford has promised an investigation into the spills — the ERCB is still reviewing Plains year-ago release — and will take action if needed.
Increasing insurance claims and higher premiums for pipeline spills are indicators the issue is becoming more significant for companies.
“Over the last year we have seen a remarkable increase in spill frequency and severity,” said Roger Swierstra, executive vice-president of Calgary-based insurance broker Iridium Risk Services.
“Increasing production volumes are straining existing pipeline infrastructure, and oil and gas producers are now in catch-up mode with their pipeline integrity management programs … there are thousands of kilometres of pipe in Alberta and a lot of it is aging and subject to things like corrosion.”
Oil leaks from pipelines date to the dawn of the industry.
An ERCB report on Alberta pipelines from 1990 to 2005 found 4,769 “releases” with all but about 50 equal to less than 10 barrels of oil.
Alberta’s largest pipeline spill was 41,000 barrels from Bow River Pipeline in 1975.
Kenny says that the fastestgrowing cause of pipeline failures is now “external interference” from construction companies and even homeowners digging in their backyards.
While CEPA touts is Integrity First program for its member companies to share technology and safety practices, there aren’t simple gamechanging advances that could resolve the concerns.
Even such companies as Shawcor agree that advances in pipeline technology tend to be incremental as companies adjust to changing resource — more bitumen and sour gas — and ever greater public scrutiny.
“It’s very much on the radar” of the companies’ executive teams, Swierstra said. “Some of the recent larger spills are getting a lot of media attention and not in a good way. Oil and gas companies are very aware they have a problem and everyone is scrambling to try to come up with a solution.” Politicians are also taking note. Wildrose environment critic Joe Anglin wants all water crossings for pipelines in the province to be inspected.
There’s no exact number on the size of the task, but the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline would cross hundreds of rivers and streams.
The ERCB says it’s confident in its “risk-rank system” that puts a priority on pipelines identified as the most in need of attention.
Kenny warns a system-wide review would be inefficient and unlikely to make things safer.
“You will not get as far if you have a knee-jerk reaction that causes a flurry of activity because there is a flash point,” said the president of the pipeline association.
The ERCB has a policy of targeted inspections based on a company’s history, location of the pipeline and the product it carries.
With repeated violations, companies move up the enforcement ladder and more scrutiny is applied.
“We will never have enough staff to go out and inspect every facility in the province every year,” said the ERCB spokesman, Bob Curran. “It’s just not possible.”
Kenny also points out that however distressing the nearterm impacts of a spill for the people affected, it’s not permanent.
She cites the Red Deer River, the site of an oil spill in 2008, as how these latest incidents will likely play out.
“You go back there a year or two from now and I will venture to say that you will barely know there was an incident there, if at all.”
Some of the recent larger spills are getting a lot of media attention and not in a good way
ROGER SWIERSTRA