Enbridge confident it can meet B.C. safety demands
by The Canadian Press
Province wants company to include "world-leading" plans to respond to oil spills.
CALGARY—Pipeline and utility company Enbridge is confident it can meet all of the safety demands by the B.C. government for the company’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project, chief executive Patrick Daniel said Thursday.
“We feel absolutely confident that we can do that,” Daniel told a conference call to discuss the company’s latest quarterly results.
The B.C. government said last month the company must include “world-leading” plans to prevent and respond to a marine or land oil spill as well ensure aboriginal and treaty rights are addressed in order to win the province’s support.
The province also wants to receive what it calls a “fair share” of the economic benefits that reflects the risk borne by the province.
Calgary-based Enbridge has faced scrutiny and criticism in recent days following a spill last week from its Line 14 pipeline running through Grand Marsh, Wisc., dumped roughly 1,200 barrels oil into a field that is part of the pipeline right-of-way.
The leak followed a recent report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board that likened Enbridge’s handling of a spill two years ago in southern Michigan to that of the “Keystone Kops.”
In that case, the ruptured pipeline spilled some three million litres of crude into wetlands, a creek and the Kalamazoo River.
Daniel said the company is learning from the spills and applying to lessons to improve its operations.
“Our ability to quickly detect and immediately respond to and contain the leak on Line 14 was critically important,” he said.
Enbridge has met stiff resistance from First Nations groups and others over its plan to build the Northern Gateway pipeline between Alberta and the West Coast of British Columbia so that Canadian crude can be shipped overseas.
The company recently announced a slate of safety improvements, such as thicker pipe and better monitoring, that would push the $5.5-billion project’s price tag up by $500 million.
Aboriginal groups, environmentalists and others are among the many critics to voice concern over what a spill on the pipeline, or from a tanker on the West Coast, could have on northern B.C. ecosystems.
A Joint Review Panel had been expected make a recommendation to the federal cabinet on the pipeline by the end of 2012, but a decision is now expected a year later due to the sheer volume of comments it must hear.
