Bigger pipes mean more oil exports
Project is planned in pieces small enough that each avoids a full environmental review
Enbridge spokesperson Jason Houncaren says the company is replacing a 12-inch diameter oil pipeline with a 20-inch pipeline so it can get back to shipping the same amount of oil that the 12-inch pipe used to carry. Really? He says: “Installing the new pipe, therefore, will enable us to restore Line 10 to its previous capacity — not expand it.”
Wouldn’t a new 12-inch pipe do that? Why is the largest pipeline company in North America spending a lot more money to put in a 20-inch one? The replacement pipe has the capacity to carry three times as much as the 12-inch — an extra 130,000 barrels a day. But the company adamantly claims this is not a pipeline expansion project.
Lets back up a bit and see if we can unravel this important mystery.
After all, 130,000 barrels a day is a lot of oil — more than 20 million litres. Burning it produces twice as many climate-changing greenhouse emissions as ALL the coal-fired electricity plants that Ontario shut down over the last decade — so the climate impact is equal to about 12 new coal fired plants.
Enbridge’s Line 10 is a spur line from its controversial Line 9. Line 10 goes 143 kilometres from the village of Westover across rural Hamilton, down the peninsula past Smithville, and under the Niagara River to Seneca, New York. It carries primarily diluted bitumen from the Alberta oil (tar) sands.
In its current project, Enbridge is replacing a quarter of Line 10 — a section lying entirely inside Hamilton between Westover and Nebo Road. So the company spokesperson is technically correct when he says this won’t allow the company to expand the flows beyond the capacity of a 12-inch pipe.
That’s because some other parts of Line 10 have not been enlarged. The Enbridge spokesperson says “the new pipe will match the existing downstream segment of Line 10 near Binbrook, allowing the use of cleaning, monitoring and inspection tools with greater efficiency.” But he doesn’t mention other parts such as a segment over the Niagara River are still only 12 inches.
Why not replace the entire pipe all at once? The answer is provided in the National Energy Board approval decision for the project released in late January, which states: “Enbridge’s proposed Project is under 40 km in length. It therefore is not considered a designated project under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 (CEAA 2012) and as a result does not require a CEAA 2012 environmental assessment.”
That’s a handy exemption to have for a project that has the following features — again quoted from the National Energy Board decision:
“The Replacement Line 10 Pipeline route crosses four watersheds, three sub-watersheds and approximately 64 watercourses. The watercourses include: West Spencer Creek, Big Creek, and tributaries to West Spencer Creek, Big Creek, the Welland River and Twenty Mile Creek.”
And: “The total footprint of the replacement Line 10 pipeline is 167 ha consisting of 28 ha for new easement and 139 ha for temporary workspace.”
So Enbridge is building its project in pieces small enough that each avoids a full environmental review. When all the pipe expansions are in place, it will be a simple matter to get NEB approval to increase the oil flows to “fit” the much larger pipe. That will come later, but it doesn’t change the fact that the current project is a pipeline expansion.
Enbridge has also not revealed something else about Line 10. The pipe has been effectively sold to an American company, United Refining Corporation (URC), which is paying for the expansion in Hamilton.
A statement issued by URC when the deal was cut in August 2014 said URC will “have the right to purchase the entire Line 10 at any time during the next approximately 11 years and Enbridge will also have the right to require URC to purchase Line 10 over a twoyear period starting at the later of approximately nine years or when all of the upgrades are completed.” The statement from URC also said: “the agreement will allow us to consider the feasibility of expansion of the pipeline’s capacity over the coming years subject to regulatory approvals.”
The deal is referred to on page one of the NEB decision, but when Enbridge officials were asked about it by city councillors, they denied any knowledge of the agreement with URC.
We have to stop making the climate crisis worse. If that means anything it means no new or expanded fossil fuel infrastructure. In Hamilton, that means we must stop Enbridge’s expansion of Line 10.