Enbridge. Northern gateway pipeline

Donnie Van Dyk, William Brewis and Michael Cowdell from Enbridge were our speakers this week.

Donny is public relations and is based in Kitimat.  Kitimat is based mainly on the forestry industry and is not as busy today as it has been in the past so welcomes some new employment opportunities.

Forestry exports to the US are significantly down.   Our most valuable export to the US today is oil and due to restrictions on our ability to export oil to the US we lose about 50 million dollars a day.

This new pipeline will help that.

The proposed pipeline will be from Edmonton to  Kitimat and a second pipeline to send condensate back to Edmonton to mix with our crude to make it more moveable and more valuable.

We will be using thick walled pipelines with pumping stations that will be manned 24 hours a day.

Tankers will be from round the world but will have to meet Canadian specifications to be allowed into our waters.

They will need to be double hulled. There will be two tugs on the tankers at all times they are in Canadian waters.

There will be new Navigation aids and constant manned radar.

There will be a speed limit of 8 to 12 knots.  Much slower than the 20 plus knots the cruise ships are allowed.

The narrowest part of the channel they will be in is 1.4 Km wide.

The spill recovery being put in place will be world class.

Approximately 3 times the standard required.

We will maintain a high state of readiness at all times.

There was then a lot of questions from the Rotarians.

Human error still seems to be the main problem.
Dedicated pilots will help this.

Does Canada have enough in the clean up fund to cover a major spill and will Enbridge be made to pay for it?  ( 1.4 billion )

How big is Enbridge?

Answer.  It is one of the top 10 Canadian companies with 50% being held privately with 40% being held by shipping companies and 10% being aboriginal.

The speakers were thanked by Harreson.