Straightening Canadian pipeline facts
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Retiring head of leading energy pipeline organization discusses safety record of 12-member CEPA, monies spent on safety, efficiency
GARY PARK For Petroleum News
The head of Canada’s leading energy pipeline organization is retiring, comfortable in the knowledge that, despite coming under frequent public disapproval, the industry can take pride in what it has accomplished.
For Brenda Kenny, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association for the past decade, the numbers are clear proof that the statistical record of pipeline safety by the association’s 12 member companies should make Canadians who live close to pipelines “feel more secure now than ever.”
She said the companies “don’t compete in safety (because) there is a deep recognition that anybody’s incident is everybody’s incident.”
The performance standards compiled by CEPA should cause the critics to give the benefit of the doubt to an industry they have treated so badly.
In summary:
•Over 50 years of shipping oil and natural gas on a network that now covers almost 75,000 miles in Canada there had been only two fatalities - both the result of individuals operating backhoes that struck gas lines without first undertaking the required checks on pipeline locations.
•The volume of oil spilled by pipelines in 2014 would fill about two-thirds of a rail car.
•Regulators now evaluate and test more evidence than ever before.
C$1.5B year spent on safety, efficiency She said CEPA’s companies spend more than C$1.5 billion a year to ensure crude oil and natural gas are delivered safely and efficiently, with 99.9997 percent of oil transported without incident in 2014 when liquids and gas spills and releases tallied 122 for the year.
Federal and provincial regulators ensure that pipeline builders and operators design, construct, run and dismantle pipeline facilities in “a safe and environmentally responsible manner,” Kenny said.
She said CEPA plays a role by bringing the “best and brightest minds in the industry together in collaboration, making sure the industry puts aside competition when it comes to areas like technology, opting instead to focus on sharing knowledge and lessons learned so we can improve as an industry.”
Kenney said there is a new initiative that brings together CEPA, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and Alberta Innovates-Technology Futures to pursue “responsible advancement of pipeline operations and technology.”
She said the pipeline companies have voluntarily chosen “to work together and improve our collective response capabilities by agreeing to share resources and best practices during an emergency” through an “all hands on deck” approach.
Kenny noted that critics still fail to distinguish between transmission pipelines that are highly regulated and monitored and pipelines that are part of production units.
As she clears out her desk, Kenny offered three ideas to improve the industry: Governments should incorporate serious consultation and accommodation with First Nations, rather than relying on pipeline companies; the Paris climate change summit should be followed up with clear policies to prevent pipeline applications being paralyzed by climate change advocacy; and Canada should return to its former practice of reviewing pipelines based on what is in the national interest.
Kenny indicates unease about the new Canadian government’s commitment to reform the National Energy Board and improve its environmental assessments, arguing the NEB already deals with an “extreme volume of information that is cross-examined and tested,” with environmental studies, engineering studies, transparency and evaluation far exceeding any previous standards.
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