(Recasts with documents from engineering firm, quote from
regulator)
By Mike De Souza
FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta, July 22 (Reuters) - Infrastructure
at the site in northern Alberta of one of the biggest
oil-related pipeline spills ever on North American soil was
installed on a "tight schedule", according to the firm that
developed some of the pipeline's safety technology.
The engineering firm, French-based ITP Interpipe, said in a
June 2014 presentation to the Society of Petroleum Engineers in
Calgary that field work at the site at Nexen Energy's Long Lake
oil sands facility, where the spill occurred, was completed in
less than 12 months.
The pipeline's leak detection systems failed, and it could
have been leaking for weeks before the spill was detected on
July 15 by a contractor walking along the line. ID:nL2N0ZX11B
On a media tour of the spill site on Wednesday, executives
from Nexen, owned by China's CNOOC Ltd 0883.HK , said the
project was not rushed.
Nexen's senior vice president, Canadian operations, Ron
Bailey, said the company's safety practices had been
strengthened since the CNOOC takeover in 2013.
"This is not about a rush job," Bailey said. "This is not
about cuts or anything like that. This is an unfortunate
accident. We're going to get to the bottom of that."
Nexen said it would likely take months to find the root
cause of the leak, which released more than 31,500 barrels of
emulsion, a mixture of bitumen, water and sand.
Bailey said the leak likely occurred after June 29, when the
pipeline was cleaned with water.
The incident dealt another blow to Canada's oil sands
industry in northern Alberta, which is under fire from
environmental groups for its carbon-intensive production
process.
The ITP employee who delivered the 2014 presentation about
the pipeline's technology confirmed that the firm provided the
double-wall thermal insulation and other heat-tracing
engineering on the pipeline.
"However ITP was not in charge of the steel pipes supply,
nor of the design and supply of the leak detection system, nor
of the pipeline engineering, installation or operating," ITP
said in an e-mailed statement.
A manager at the Alberta Energy Regulator, Colin Woods, said
it approved the project but did not do a construction inspection
on the line since it was not considered to be at risk. He
confirmed that the technology was new and not commonly used.
Bailey said Nexen is putting a high priority on cleaning up
the spill and investigating its cause and will not restart the
nearby Kinosis oil sands project until the spill's cause is
clear and the site cleaned.
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(With additional writing by Jeffrey Hodgson; Editing by Peter
Galloway)