Pipeline security

on Jul 16 in Pipelines tagged by Trevor Hicks

Reports about attacks on pipelines and other oil infrastructure in Nigeria are so common they kind of fade into background noise for me and probably many other industry observers.  I didn’t realize they were occuring so frequently in Canada.  The Financial Post reports that

There have been six bomb attacks on EnCana pipelines in the region, dating back to mid-October 2008, when an explosion ripped out a two-metre crater under a pipeline near the hamlet of Tomslake, B. C., about 30 kilometres south of Dawson Creek.

Tom Flanagan studied the issue and wrote a report for the industry.

The report, part of a series of institute studies directed by the energy company, identifies five “threat groups.” They include: individual saboteurs, eco-terrorists, mainstream environmentalists, First Nations and Metis people.

“All except the Metis have, at various times, used some combination of litigation, blockades, occupations, boycotts, sabotage and violence against economic development projects, which they saw as a threat to environmental values or aboriginal rights,” Mr. Flanagan’s report says.

On the flip side,

Environmental writer Andrew Nikiforuk said Mr. Flanagan’s report focuses on the wrong security issues.

“Energy developments are generally secure when you make sure that surface owners — whether they are farmers or aboriginals — are treated with respect … and where regulators don’t allow development to undermine groundwater, air quality and health of the local community,” Mr. Nikiforuk said.

Welcome to the world of the super-empowered individual. Modern-day Gavrilo Princips can cause quite a bit of havoc for relatively innocent people who just want their houses to be warm in winter when the aggrieved perceive that their legitimate interests are not given a fair hearing by large, powerful institutions.