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A black eye that will stick EnCana gets scolded for handling of sour gas leak in British Columbia; ponders new technologies to set off earlier alarms Gary Park For Petroleum News
For EnCana, it’s bound to be one of those low-water marks that is associated with the big Canadian independent for years to come.
You can safely bet a lot of corporate time and money will be devoted to ensuring there is no repeat performance.
It’s something like EnCana’s version of the 1982 Johnson & Johnson cause célèbre when cyanide-laced Tylenol killed seven people in the Chicago area, or the ongoing struggles by Toyota to snuff out the controversy over its brake and accelerator system.
EnCana’s problems started on the morning of Nov. 22 and culminated Feb. 3 with one of the sternest rebukes a company has ever received from the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission.
The fallout is harder to measure, but it does no good for EnCana’s public image, which has attracted considerable public sympathy during a series of unsolved pipeline bombings in British Columbia and frequent accusations that EnCana has not paid enough attention to public safety.
Suspicions among local residents that their concerns are being brushed aside gained momentum in mid-January when the OGC belatedly cancelled a public meeting to discuss the causes and consequences of the potentially deadly hydrogen sulfide leak on Nov. 22 from an EnCana well site near Pouce Coupe, a town of 700 residents, about 15 miles west of the Alberta-British Columbia border — a leak the company initially said posed no danger.
Commission cites failures The OGC investigation took a much tougher line, laying out a litany of failures.
The watchdog said there were multiple system failures when a pipeline ruptured and EnCana failed to properly execute its emergency response plan.
“The commission notes that it would be impractical for EnCana to notify residents or prepare for evacuation upon receipt of every alarm,” the report said, but insisted that in this case there were indications of an active gas release before a visual inspection.
The OGC said the company did not start evacuating area residents until 71 minutes after the first alarm went off and failed to notify the B.C. government until almost an hour after workers visually confirmed the leak.
The investigation said that although the flow of information within EnCana was effective, its delays in “external notifications reduced the overall effectiveness of the response.”
A chastened EnCana quickly followed the report’s release with a news conference when Mike McAllister, vice president of the Canadian Deep basin business unit, said the company fully accepted all the directions and 12 binding recommendations in the OGC report.
He said many of the proposed responses have already been implemented and the rest will be carried out, including additional controls and monitoring at all wells that are within about two miles of a residence and where well control is dependent on testing hydrogen sulfide levels in the air around pipes.
EnCana said it is exploring new technologies that might sound alarms earlier, including when slow leaks occur.
It is also planning educational sessions on emergency response and hydrogen sulfide awareness for residents living near its operations.
“We are very sorry this has happened,” McAllister said. “We know this incident was disruptive and is of considerable concern for residents directly affected by the leak.”
He said it was an extremely rare event, unlike anything EnCana had previously encountered, but conceded that “clearly procedures were not followed.”
OGC report The OGC report said:
One resident first smelled what he thought was sewage at 2:30 a.m.; three others heard jet-like roaring sounds and smelled rotten eggs in the next five hours, but none notified authorities.
At 8:30 a.m. a local hunter saw a gas cloud and smelled strong odors, so he urged nearby residents to evacuate and called 911.
At 8:30 a.m. the pipe at the well site experienced a “sudden failure” and at 9:05 a.m. EnCana’s control room received an alarm, followed five minutes later by an alarm which confirmed the well had shut-in due to hydrogen sulfide.
At 9:35 a.m. the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told EnCana about the leak, one hour after the 911 call.
An EnCana operator visually confirmed the leak at 9:52 a.m., but the company did not start evacuating residents until 10:16 a.m., then notified the Provincial Emergency Program at 10:49 a.m., which EnCana said it would not normally do until it knew exactly what was happening.
Side of pipe eroded The OGC concluded the leak was caused by sand in the gas that eroded the side of the pipe and accused EnCana of failing to properly clean the well after it was built.
McAllister said EnCana shut down 225 wells after the incident and checked pipelines for erosion problems. None was found unsafe, but six are still being examined.
No matter what steps EnCana is taking to regain community trust, the damage has been done.
Lois Hill, a representative of a citizen’s environment and safety group, told the Globe and Mail the Nov. 22 incident “has proven to us beyond any doubt that we are not safe.”
EnCana and the OGC have repeatedly told the residents that safety measures are redundant.
“We now see that’s not true,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to wait for a catastrophic failure until alarms are sounded.”
Tim Ewert, a Pouce Coupe resident, said in January that he was told by the OGC that the level of hydrogen sulfide coming out of the well varied from 6,100 to 8,200 parts per million — the OGC report put the level of sulfur dioxide at 6,200 parts per million — when 7 parts per million “will kill you instantly.”
“Sometimes it gets so frustrating, just the twisted kind of tale of deceit and cover up,” he said.
And dealing with that view will be part of EnCana’s long haul back to credibility in the region.
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