TPT May 2009

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From the AmericaS
May 2009 74 ›
He wrote, “These blasts, killing three and injuring one, have
served as a reminder of the dangers associated with the massive
underground pipe system tunnelling beneath streets and delivering
a flammable product to nearly 1.5 million customers in the state.
The system’s 21,000 miles of gas main would be nearly enough
to travel around the circumference of the Earth. More than a third
of the system relies on old, antiquated pipes.” (‘After the blasts, a
cloud of questions,’ 15 March).
The recent rash of explosions is under investigation, and there is
no evidence that poor oversight, shoddy maintenance, or aging
infrastructure played a direct role. But the state tracks the number
of old bare steel and cast-iron pipes in the ground and requires gas
companies to have plans to phase them out.
According to company officials interviewed by Mr O’Brien, Bay State
Gas Co launched a programme four years ago to replace 570 miles
of old steel pipe by 2020. National Grid expects to replace up to 50
miles this year. And NStar has been replacing about 16 miles of old
pipe per year, even though many old pipes are aging well. According
to Thomas Hart, NStar’s director of gas engineering, “Some large-
diameter cast iron pipes are still very thick and still performing very
well. And there are studies that show they will still be performing
well for decades.”
The Globe noted that Massachusetts, with eight state inspectors,
has twice as many as required by federal guidelines. The most
recent federal audit of the state Department of Public Utilities gave
its pipeline safety team a nearly perfect score. And state regulations
are often more stringent than federal standards, requiring thicker
walls on some pipes and greater volumes of odour-inducing
chemicals in the gas. Residents typically smell leaking gas long
before it becomes a threat.
Even so, with 7,900 miles of antiquated gas pipes in the ground
in Massachusetts, probably suspicions about the infrastructure are
inevitable.
› Federal corrosion control regulations enacted in 1970 stopped
US gas companies from installing cast iron pipes, either initially
or as replacements. Around the same time, Mr O’Brien pointed out,
gas companies started moving away from bare steel pipes, as well.
In their place came plastic pipes – more pliable in shifting soil – and
cathodically protected coated steel pipes that carry a slight electrical
charge for better corrosion resistance.
A comment by Charles Batten, a former chief of pipeline accident
investigations for the National Transportation Safety Board,
illustrates the trade-off between better and best in the matter of
high-pressure natural gas transport through bare steel and cast-iron
pipes.
“It’d be nice to go through and rip out all the old pipes and put in new
pipes,” Mr Batten told the Globe. “But that’s not going to happen.”
Petro-Canada and Suncor Energy, both active
in the Canada oil sands, will join forces
A proposed merger of two of the largest operators in Canada’s oil
sands industry is of more than usual interest, even for an all-stock
deal worth about $15 billion. The plan, announced 24 March, to
combine the oil giants Petro-Canada and Suncor Energy would form
a new company with a market capitalization of about C$43 billion
(US$35 billion). It also would erase the last visible traces of former
Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s audacious programme of the
1960s for bringing Canada’s energy resources under government
control.
Petro-Canada, which earned C$3.8 billion (US$3.1 billion) last year,
was in fact controlled by Ottawa until 1995. The company operates
refineries and a nationwide chain of service stations. But its more
significant presence is as an operator of conventional and oil sands
production sites in Canada.
Also in 1995, Suncor, then a subsidiary of Sun Oil, was sold by
its American owners and has become the third-largest oil and gas
company in Canada. Suncor began investing in oil sands after
World War II, and was the first company to produce synthetic
crude oil from the sands deposits. While this extraction method is
condemned by some environmental groups, oil sands technology
has helped make Canada the largest supplier of crude oil to the
United States.
The Petro-Canada component of Mr Trudeau’s National Energy
Program met with strong opposition in the province of Alberta, oil
sands country and the centre of Canada’s energy industry. Among
other objectionable provisions, the idealistic – some said Utopian –
prime minister assigned Petro-Canada a number of responsibilities
that hampered its market performance.
› Investors in Petro-Canada are now to have a delayed satisfaction.
The merger with Suncor Energy is expected to save about $300
million a year. Richard L George, the president and chief executive