Enbridge's pipeline number 4 ruptured last night releasing 1,350 barrels of oil from a pumping station in Regina, Saskatchewan. Pipeline number four, the largest pipeline carrying Canadian oil into the U.S. remains shut down this morning.
Regina pipeline leak disrupts Canadian, U.S. oil supplies
BY ROBERT TUTTLE AND LYNN DOAN/BLOOMBERG
REGINA -- Canadian oil supplies to the U.S. Midwest were disrupted after Enbridge Inc. shut a pipeline because of a leak in Regina.
The company isolated its Line 4 pipe at the Regina terminal in Saskatchewan Tuesday after about 1,350 barrels of oil were released within an on-site pumping station, according to a statement.
The company is excavating the line around a pumphouse and hasn't provided an estimate for how long repairs may take, Gerard Kay, deputy chief of operations at Regina Fire and Protective Services, said by phone.
The 796,000 barrel-a-day pipe carries heavy, medium and light sour crude from Edmonton, Alberta, to Superior, Wisconsin.
Enbridge spokesman Graham White didn't provide an estimate for when the line will return to service and said the company hasn't declared force majeure, a legal clause excusing a company from meeting its commitments because of events beyond its control.
If this turns out to be an extended outage, it's certainly going to impact Canadian oil producers much more than U.S. refiners, Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston, said by phone.
This isn't a minor spill for Enbridge which touts the safety of its pipelines to communities it wants to build new proposed pipelines through.
In related news in British Columbia the First Nation Nisga'a people are balking at signing a deal to allow Trans Canada to build of another pipeline for export across a sacred burial ground, now the Nisga'a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park.
Nisga'a push back against pipeline plan
by Anna Killen
Those people include members of Klatte's family, the lineage of which includes Nisga'a hereditary chief James Robinson, also known as Chief Mountain who launched several court challenges against the Nisga'a treaty, and groups of Nisga'a citizens who have been circulating petitions and holding rallies in the valley and in Vancouver in opposition to the pipeline deals since details were released in early November.
Their concerns are wide-ranging and not exclusive from the route of the proposed 50-metre wide pipeline right-of-way to what has been called a lack of transparency on the part of the government on the events leading up to the deal, including how much money the Nisga'a will specifically receive and how that will be divided, to potential impacts on fish and wildlife habitat if LNG plants are erected on Nisga'Âa lands along the coast.
Some are solely concerned with the land removed from the park for the pipeline route. The lava beds in the park are regarded by Nisga'a as a burial ground in that they contain the burial locations for several thousand Nisga'a killed following a volcanic eruption more than 250 years ago.
And the broader environmental movement concerned, in part, with carbon emissions from energy development has also embraced the Nisga'a opposition.