Burnaby Oil Pipeline

It is not likely that people remember the news specifically from July 24, 2007, but anyone involved in drilling work surely had shivers going down their spine watching the news clips of the Burnaby neighbourhood covered in a thick layer of 234,000 litres of crude oil as the result of a pipeline strike.  Truly a case of a picture being worth a thousand words; if you google “Burnaby oil spill photo” you will see some startling photos.  Anyone who sees those photos would certainly not attempt a drilling project without getting proper locates.

The Transportation Safety Board issued their report in March 2009 which discusses the facts about the incident and some conclusions of the reasons for its occurrence.  In the “Findings as to Causes and Contributing Factors”, the second of the 6 points particularly caught our attention:

“2. Since the location of the Westridge Pipeline was not verified along Inlet Drive, as required under the crossing agreement and the National Energy Board Pipeline Crossing Regulations, Part I, the discrepancy between its location, as shown on the design drawings, and its actual field location was not discovered before the start of construction.”

In other words, they did not have proper locates !  In other areas of the text it refers to personnel relying on drawings instead of locates and the drawings being incorrect.  Kodiak has been requested many times to drill on the basis of design or as-built drawings instead of proper locates.  We wouldn’t do it then, and we sure wouldn’t do it now, after this incident.  Some resources on this topic are provided below:

click on this link, if you would like to see first hand, what can happen if your locates are not complete.  Some other interesting links are below:

Transportation Safety Board report
Dianne Saxe blog posts on the topic
CBC report on the incident