With the land already compromised South and the tarsands themselves so vast and ugly, these are the projects that we can safely overlook or play down, right? Well, if we are looking for the best imagery and emotional appeals then that is correct. But otherwise, from an environmental point of view the point is to reduce the damage being done by tarsand operations. And the logic of pipelines, investments and infrastructure-- especially infrastructure that is based almost solely on expanding capacity in all directions, is that the construction of these is a part of the construction of all the others, from the Arctic to Pacific and elsewhere.
Stop them all, and we might stop the tarsands.
Macdonald
Pipeline expansion has builders scrambling
Edmonton line is one of six parts in $4.5-billion US construction project carried out by Enbridge
Gordon Jaremko, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Monday, April 02, 2007
And they're off!
"To say we're in growth mode would be an understatement," said John Hayes, Edmonton-based western region general manager of Enbridge Pipelines Inc.
"It's unprecedented," added Bill Forbes, the company's Calgary manager of market development projects.
The enthusiasm showed at community open houses on construction plans along the Enbridge oil line east of Edmonton in Sherwood Park, Daysland and Lougheed.
The central Alberta project, known as the Line 4 Extension, is one of six parts in a $4.5-billion US Enbridge pipeline expansion drive underway across the continent from Fort McMurray to southern Illinois and Oklahoma.
The Enbridge growth program comes on top of additions to Trans Mountain Pipe Line from Edmonton to Vancouver and southbound Express Pipeline, plus a new oil export route dubbed Keystone by sponsors TransCanada PipeLines and ConocoPhillips.
After decades as the industry's quietest branch, oil pipelines are scrambling to expand in time for oilsands production increases from plants now under construction.
Inside the busy companies, the mood recalls the pioneer era of Canadian pipelines when the international oil delivery grid was born in a construction boom after the 1947 Leduc discovery southwest of Edmonton.
"This is the most exciting time I've ever been involved in," said Hayes, a veteran of 20 years with Enbridge.
The company, born as Interprovincial Pipe Line, owns the core of the Canadian oil delivery service and runs it by remote control from a central command station in Edmonton.
The 5,000-employee company manages and operates a 13,600-kilometre pipeline network that is the world's largest oil transportation system. It carries more than two million barrels per day between Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories, Ontario refineries and the Chicago region.
The Line 4 Extension east of Edmonton, scheduled for construction by up to 300 workers in 2008 for $250 million to $300 million, is one of the smaller items in the growth program, yet plays a central role.
The project will add shipments of 880,000 barrels per day to a 180-kilometre route from Enbridge's Edmonton terminal and the industry's Hardisty pipeline hub. The new service will relay rising oilsands output across Alberta to growth markets in the central United States.
The price tag is modest by industry standards because the plan reopens dormant pieces of the Enbridge network.
About 40 kilometres of pipeline 120 centimetres in diameter, the largest tubes in the system, were mothballed as Alberta output of conventional liquid oil tapered off after peaking in the mid-1970s.
The $100-billion-plus oilsands rush will more than make up for the depletion of conventional reserves by generating about one million barrels per day of new production over the next three years alone. A further million or more barrels daily of new oilsands output is coming in the following 10 years.
Another key piece of the Enbridge growth program fell into place last week, when the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board approved construction of the company's new $400-million Waupisoo Pipeline between Fort McMurray and Edmonton.
Four more items on the Enbridge agenda are under construction or in various stages of regulatory approval.
At the American end of the system, projects called Spearhead and Southern Access are extending the network from the Chicago area to oil trading hubs in southern Illinois and Oklahoma for $540 million US.
With industry support, Enbridge is advancing $3.3 billion in service additions called Alberta Clipper and Southern Lights. They will increase bitumen exports and fetch imports of "diluent" or refinery byproducts used as thinner to make the tarry initial output of oilsands projects flow in pipelines.
Not even the $40-billion lineup of "upgrader" projects northeast of Edmonton is expected to turn all the new oilsands output into premium light oil.
Shipments of unprocessed bitumen will hit 1.2 million barrels per day by 2015, Enbridge has told the National Energy Board in a forecast generated by an industry survey.
But the oil pipeline boom is a quiet affair compared to the first round of construction in the 1950s.
Enbridge projects draw little attention beyond inner circles of oil shippers, refineries, utility investors and landowners along the pipeline rights-of-way.
Over the 57-year-history of its network, the firm has become a master of building projects with little community or environmental fuss.
The AEUB approved the new 380-kilometre Waupisoo oilsands line, plus a shorter Edmonton terminal connection in a thickly populated region, without holding public hearings.
All community, environmental and aboriginal objections by groups which the project directly affected were withdrawn, the AEUB said in a two-page approval decision.
Enbridge negotiated agreements that included changes to the route and facilities.
The art of building pipelines includes accepting public concerns and modifying company plans when possible, Hayes and Forbes said as Enbridge staff looked for potential central Alberta sore spots in Sherwood Park discussions with country landowners.
