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CALGARY — They are the little brothers and sisters of the pipeline world. Some are barely large enough to jam a hand into, but they do the dirtiest work in the energy business, ferrying great volumes of raw oil and gas from wells to processing plants.
And though they are small, they often carry large risk, an issue of mounting concern in Alberta, a province that has seen a series of spills train a global spotlight on pipeline safety.
These smaller pipes can often be overlooked, next to the big ones that garner attention when they rupture into the Kalamazoo River – an accident that cost Enbridge Inc. a historic $3.7-million (U.S.) fine this week, on top of $725-million in cleanup costs – or at an Alberta pumping station where the company recently had another large spill.
But in Alberta, the pipe is almost all small. Some 327,000 kilometres of pipe that is eight inches and smaller in diameter spread across the province like a network of veins. It is roughly 90 per cent of all pipe in the province, a vast web of steel that is uniquely vulnerable to problems, and uniquely difficult to both oversee and maintain.