Today, the Canadian Energy Pipelines Association (CEPA) represents 11 large transmission pipeline companies and other technical and associate members that have an interest in pipeline integrity and environment issues.

CEPA President Brenda Kenny says that the association has experienced considerable growth over the last two decades. “In particular, in the mid-1990s, stress-corrosion cracking was a challenging technical issue in Canada and a fairly significant concern. It created a really important drive to collaborate and come together, and through that we felt that there were various factors to work together on, such as common standards and best practices.”

Dr Kenny says that CEPA currently has over 150 routine volunteer technical experts that address a variety of issues from accounting practices through to climate change.

“It’s been a very effective way to share information and pool knowledge to help solve problems,” says Dr Kenny.

“There is certainly the benefit of looking ahead to areas of future concern that would be difficult to handle by any one company, and through CEPA we can also reach beyond our own sector.

“For example, last year we did a lot of work across the value chain. We worked with upstream partners and downstream partners on the Energy Framework Initiative.”

The framework outlines key elements of an integrated energy policy framework for Canada, focusing on sustainable development.

“Through that initiative we collaborated with a number of stakeholders to consider the way in which to talk about energy, the environment and the economy, and some of the main policy areas that need to be solved for that,” says Dr Kenny.

Key issues

Dr Kenny says that the environment, regulation and land access are key issues that face the Canadian pipeline industry.

“Regulation and how decisions are made around critical infrastructure is a key area,” Dr Kenny explains. “How decisions are taken in the public interest drives how to be sensible about regulation.”

In addition, Dr Kenny says that the interception between land use and infrastructure is important to CEPA.

“In Canada, we have an increasing population encroachment on rights-of-way (RoW) in areas that used to be very remote.”

She says that this boosts the need for strict pipeline-integrity and risk-management systems. In particular, the association is completing a lot of work on damage prevention. Approximately half of Canada’s safety incidents are related to third-party damage, and while the nation has dial-before-you-dig laws in place, Dr Kenny says that the enforcement is relatively weak.

“It’s a very different risk-management issue involving human behaviour as opposed to pipeline integrity issues, which are highly technical. We need to use different tools to attack each one well,” she says.

Working with stakeholders

“We are finding that there is a lot more up-front planning and collaboration to find ingenious ways to leave positive legacies,” says Dr Kenny.

She points to managing impacts to the environment as an area where collaboration is important.

“One good example of that was a major pipeline project in a protected national park in the Rockies here in Canada; the pipeline company going through there worked with environmental groups to address broad ecosystem problems as opposed to focusing just on the RoW.

“In Jasper Park the big issue was big animals like caribou and grizzly bears being able to move freely on a landscape. It had nothing to do with the pipeline, but it was something that the pipeline construction could actually help with, and produce new and safe pathways so that the animals could move and breed.”

Dr Kenny clarifies, “That’s a very specific ecosystem issue, but it goes to the heart of how you execute projects and I’m sure in any region you can identify environmental challenges and collaborate on how pipeline companies can help in solving those.”

Moving ahead

Dr Kenny says that it is important for pipeline companies in Canada, and around the world, to address a ‘triple bottom line’.

“Be really clear about what sustainable development really is, and address those environmental issues, meet those social needs, and do it in a way that is economically efficient.

“That’s what CEPA aims to do and I think we need to move forward on the sophistication of how to do that and communicate effectively so that stakeholders understand what we stand for and how we can do that.”