Enbridge reports leak from U.S. pipeline

Patrick Daniel, president and CEO of Enbridge, prepares to address the company's annual meeting in Calgary, May 11, 2011.

The Globe and Mail:

Canadian pipeline builder Enbridge reported a leak from one of its pipelines on the day public hearings began into the company’s planned Northern Gateway pipeline.

U.S. pipeline regulators told Enbridge about the possible leak. A subsequent helicopter over-flight discovered a metre-wide patch of bubbles over the company’s Stingray pipeline, which can carry 560-million cubic feet a day of natural gas from offshore wells in the Gulf of Mexico. The bubbles were found about 100 kilometres from the Louisiana coast.

Enbridge plans to keep the pipeline running until it can get a dive boat in to inspect the pipe – that should happen by week’s end, although it is weather dependent. If it’s broken, it will then make repairs.

Enbridge declined to describe how it could be safe to continue operating a pipeline that may be leaking.

The possible leak comes at a difficult time for the company, which has sought to reassure first nations and environmental groups that it is a safe operator amid an uproar over the potential for spills from its Northern Gateway pipeline.

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