Enbridge Inc. says it has learned from its 2010 Line 6B pipeline oil spill in Michigan to be more careful; however, in 2012 the total volume of liquids spilled was larger even with fewer spills, says a new report.
The report indicates Enbridge’s pipelines experienced 85 spills in 2012 with a total volume of 10,224 barrels (bbls) versus 94 spills with a total volume of 2,336 bbls in 2011. The 2012 total includes 4,246 bbls of crude oil that was released to a tank roof that did not result in any environmental damage.
The information was included in the company’s 205-page 2013 corporate social responsibility (CSR) report in which the company provides details on its environmental, social and governance performance in 2012, as well as significant developments in the first half of 2013.
According to Enbridge, incidents such as its 20,000-bbl Michigan spill, and the subsequent responses and expectations from regulatory bodies, have caused the company to re-examine and enhance its work practices to further prevent incidents and improve environmental, worker and public safety.
Specifically, the company is adopting the mindset of industries such as aerospace, airlines, nuclear and chemical processing, which refuse to accept that any incident is inevitable or acceptable, it said.
“We are being challenged to achieve unprecedented levels of performance in safety and environmental protection while at the same time realizing the social and economic benefits created by new energy opportunities,” said Al Monaco, president and chief executive officer.
“We are responding in ways that are fundamentally changing the way we do business. We are determined to be the industry leader in operational safety and reliability and we’ve established an operational risk management (ORM) plan to meet that objective across six key areas. The ORM plan sits alongside our strategic plan and, beginning in 2013, our progress will be independently verified.”
Of the total spills in 2012, 68 (about 80%) had a volume of 10 bbls or less, 66 (around 78%) occurred at Enbridge facilities and 19 (approximately 22%) occurred on Enbridge rights-of-way or were not on Enbridge property.
In 2010 the company had 80 spills (34,122 bbls), 2009 saw 89 spills (8,353 bbls) and in 2008 there were 80 spills (2,681 bbls).
Gas transportation had one gas release, totalling 4.25 million cubic feet, which met the reportable incident criteria of United States pipeline safety inspectors.
A “spill” refers to liquids, and a “release” refers to gases.
A “reportable spill or release” is defined as a spill or release that is large or significant enough to require Enbridge to formally notify a regulatory agency.
A “significant spill” is defined as any off-site release of a commodity greater than 100 bbls or that entails clean-up costs of $1 million or more.
Enbridge says most of its spills occur within its own facilities, such as pump stations and terminals, are contained within those industrial facilities and do not enter the natural environment.
According to the CSR report, the major air emissions released by Enbridge facilities include methane, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Other contaminants released, but in much smaller quantities, include sulphur dioxide (SO2), hydrogen sulphide and particulate matter, and hazardous air pollutants such as hexane.
The report indicates that in 2012, Enbridge’s gas transportation segment emitted 1,926 tonnes of carbon monoxide (1,816 tonnes in 2011), 2,795 tonnes of NOx (3,094 tonnes in 2011), 1,647 tonnes of VOCs (1,405 in 2011) and 540 tonnes of SO2 (311 in 2011).
In its gas distribution segment in 2012, the company emitted 90 tonnes of carbon monoxide (152 tonnes in 2011), 110 tonnes of NO2 (323 in 2011) and 16 tonnes of VOCs (22 in 2011).
The majority of the company’s direct emissions are from its Canadian gas distribution and services, and United States gas transportation business units.
For its gas distribution business unit in Canada (excluding storage operations), Enbridge has set a direct emissions intensity target of a 5% reduction based on 2011 emissions and number of customers (i.e., tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per number of customers) to be achieved by 2015 (i.e., about a 1% per year reduction, which is consistent with its previous target performance for the business unit).
Direct emissions make up the majority of emissions for its gas distribution business unit.
Enbridge says it will set future targets for reducing direct emissions from its assets once it has secured more accurate inventory data to help it establish a more robust baseline.
The company has designed and installed an emissions data management system to facilitate compliance with emissions reporting requirements in both Canada and the U.S.
According to the CSR report, Enbridge’s liquids pipelines were directly responsible for 17,786 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2012, compared with 19,670 tonnes of CO2e in 2011. That compares to 18,125 tonnes of CO2e in 2010 and 14,951 tonnes of CO2e in 2009.
It says its liquids pipelines had indirect emissions of 2.78 million tonnes of CO2e in 2012 versus 2.69 million tonnes of CO2e in 2011. This compares with 2.77 million tonnes of CO2e in 2010 and 2.73 million tonnes of CO2e in 2009.
The term “direct” emissions refers to emissions (fugitive, combustion, vented) that result from activities associated with company-owned facilities and from company-owned. The term “indirect” emissions refers to emissions from purchased electricity where the emissions occur at facilities owned by a third party.
Indirect emissions from operations are due mainly to the electricity used at pump stations on the liquids pipelines system.
Enbridge is a partner in Project Aquistore in Saskatchewan, a collaborative effort among government, industry and research institutions to demonstrate that storage of carbon dioxide in deep geologic formations is a safe, effective solution for GHG emissions reduction.
The integrated carbon capture, transportation, injection and storage project will see carbon dioxide captured from a source in southeast Saskatchewan, targeted to begin in 2014.
Approximately 500 to 1,000 tonnes per day will be transported via pipeline for injection into a nearby deep saline formation at 2,000 to 3,000 metres in depth.
Results of the project will be available for the benefit of future CCS projects, government policy and regulation development, and for large stationary industries to consider geological storage as an option for mitigating GHG emissions.
Enbridge says that since its initial investment in a wind farm in 2002 it has invested more than $3 billion in wind, solar, geothermal, waste heat recovery and a host of other alternative energy technology projects that together have the capacity to generate more than 1,700 megawatts of emissions-free energy – enough to meet the annual needs of approximately 566,000 homes and result in the avoidance of approximately 1.6 million tonnes of GHG emissions each year.
The company says it plans to double its renewable and alternative energy production capacity in the five years from 2011 to 2016.
By the end of the third quarter of 2013, Enbridge was forecasting that its power consumption will grow by 3,609 gigawatt hours (GWh) by 2015, while power generated from its renewable energy assets (both existing and under construction) will be 3,795 GWh.
Enbridge’s 2013 CSR report is web-based and available on Enbridge’s website at http://www.csr.enbridge.com/. It highlights the areas that are most material to Enbridge’s operations and stakeholders including pipeline integrity, health and safety, the environment, community relations and economic benefits.
The CSR report was prepared using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3.1 sustainability reporting guidelines. These guidelines are intended to serve as a generally accepted framework for reporting on an organization’s economic, environmental and social performance.
The GRI guidelines contain general and sector-specific content that has been agreed on by a wide range of stakeholders around the world to be generally applicable for reporting an organization’s sustainability performance.
Enbridge says it has been included on the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World ranking for the past five years and is also included on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (North America and World indices), the Financial Times/London Stock Exchange (North America and World indices) and the CDP Global 500 Carbon Disclosure ranking.
