Enbridge, Pennwest wrestle pipeline spills

Rain having ‘minor’ impact on northern Alberta operations

Enbridge is working to restart two northern Alberta pipelines that were shut down as a precautionary measure after a leak Saturday in a line near Fort McMurray, believed to be caused by heavy rains.

About 750 barrels of oil spilled from Line 37 into a wetland area and small lake, at a site about 70 kilometres southeast of Fort McMurray. Two other Enbridge pipelines in the area were shut down, a major part of the network that serves Alberta’s oilsands.

Suncor Energy said Monday it had temporarily reduced output from its Fort McMurray operations after the Enbridge shutdowns.

“As a result of the precautionary pipeline shutdowns, our ability to move product out of the region has been restricted and we’ve temporarily slowed production at our oilsands operations,” Suncor CEO Steve Williams said in a news release.

An Enbridge spokesman said service returned to the southern portion of the Athabasca line (Line 19) late Sunday, restoring operations between Cheecham and Hardisty.

The line north of Cheecham to Edmonton remains shut down.

The Waupisoo line (Line 18) is being assessed and may be cleared for restart later Tuesday.

The 540-kilometre Athabasca line can carry up to 570,000 barrels per day of crude from the Athabasca and Cold Lake regions to Hardisty, about 200 kilometres southeast of Edmonton.

The Waupisoo line can carry up to 600,000 barrels per day to Edmonton from Cheecham Terminal, near the site of the spill.

About 75 people are cleaning up at the site of the Line 37 spill, spokesman Todd Nogier said Tuesday.

The 17-kilometre-long, 12-inch diameter pipe links the Long Lake oilsands upgrader with the Athabasca system.

Contractors spent Tuesday laying rig mats to allow heavier equipment on to the remote site, including vacuum trucks for product recovery and contaminated water removal. Wildlife deterrents, including fencing and scare cannons, were also set up.

The cause of the leak has not been confirmed, but Nogier said it is believed heavy rainfall in the region caused ground movement that may have affected the pipeline.

It’s not yet known how the leak and subsequent shut downs will impact the company’s production.

“It depends on how long the remaining lines will be closed,” Nogier said.

Meanwhile, a Pennwest Exploration official said about 30 people are on-site in northern Alberta, cleaning up a spill detected June 19 from a produced water pipeline in the company’s Slave field, near Read Earth. The company initially estimated 5,000 litres of oil spilled and later revised that to include 400,000 to 600,000 litres of produced water.

The spill covered about 1.8 hectares of a muskeg area, spokesman Greg Moffatt said.

The initial estimate was based on a visual inspection, Moffatt said, but once response crews were dispatched to the site it was determined the volume of the spill was much larger.

Production impacts from the leak are about 40 to 45 barrels of oil a day.

Trevor Gemmell, a spokesman with Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, said the government continues to work with Enbridge, Pennwest and consultants to ensure proper monitoring, cleanup, and remediation of the spills.

A spokesman for the Alberta Energy Regulator said crews are on both sites doing investigation and inspection work.

“Short-term rainfall and inclement weather does not hamper cleanup over the longterm,” Gemmell said.

Moffatt said the co-ordination of cleanup efforts between the northern Alberta site and the company’s head office in Calgary were not hampered by flooding. “At no times were containment or mitigation efforts impeded or affected by the flooding in southern Alberta,” Moffatt said. “We have field resources and they were on-site Wednesday night before everything (in Calgary) started to happen. To the extent we were able to make the required notifications and dispatch crews and equipment to site, they were absolutely not affected.”

But Lubicon Lake Nation officials say they were not advised of the leak within Lubicon lands until three days after the spill, on the evening of June 22. The spill is located south of Lubicon Lake, near an area that is the proposed location of future Lubicon reserve lands.

“If there’s a spill on Wednesday, we should know on Wednesday,” said Garrett Tomlinson, a Lubicon Lake Nation spokesman.

Other energy companies operating in northern Alberta say southern flooding has had minimal impact on production. Rhona DelFrari, spokeswoman for Cenovus, said the company’s Foster Creek operations had “a minor flooding-related interruption” after a product used on-site could not be delivered from a company in Exshaw, west of Calgary.

“There was a temporary disruption in the ability of the trucks to get out of there, but now we’re getting the product again,” DelFrari said. She said the product is a dry chemical used in oil production.

DelFrari said while employees are not working out of the company’s office in downtown Calgary, “we’re still maintaining the same type of contact with our field operators as we normally would.”

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s president said field operations “remain stable and operational with very minor impact” due to flooding.