Tag Archives: National Energy Board

Canadian regulator orders Spectra to clean up its safety practices

Canada’s FERC equivalent had to escalate from specific fines to a blanket clean-up order. Do you still believe Spectra is “a very genuine, safe, law-abiding company”?

Mackenzie Scrimshaw, iPolitics.ca, 15 July 2015, The Drilldown: Spectra Energy faces NEB fines,

Spectra Energy Corp SE.N is feeling the heat from the National Energy Board (NEB). As Reuters reports, the Houston-based company is facing more than $120,000 in fines for committing almost 30 infractions at its Westcoast Energy processing plants in the last 15 months. What’s more, the NEB has requested a correction of these “management system failures.” “The Board expects Westcoast to address safety concerns on a systemic basis, throughout all its gas processing plants and facilities,” reads the NEB’s safety order. “Based on recent violations described below, the Board is not confident safety concerns are being addressed in this manner.”

So that $88,000 fine in January was just the start of this year’s NEB fines to Spectra.

Mike De Souza, Yahoo! Finance, 14 July 2015, Canada regulator orders Spectra Energy to clean up practices, Continue reading Canadian regulator orders Spectra to clean up its safety practices

Spectra challenging fine for not protecting Western Toad

Does this help you believe Spectra’s promises to protect gopher tortoises while invading Georgia with its Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline?

Mike Carter, Alaska Highway News, 17 June 2015, Spectra challenges $28,000 fine for failing to protect Western Toad habitat,

Spectra Energy Transmission faces a $28,000 fine for allegedly failing to protect the habitat of the Western Toad while constructing its Transmission North Expansion project north of Moberly Lake, in the Beryl Prairie area near Butler Ridge Provincial Park.

According to National Energy Board (NEB) spokesperson Darin Barter, the company stands accused of failing to protect the toad’s habitat in accordance with the project’s application documents.

In a June 3 letter to the NEB, Spectra indicated Continue reading Spectra challenging fine for not protecting Western Toad

Spectra’s Canadian negligence and Fort Nelson leak and flare

If Spectra was so negligent the Canadian FERC equivalent had to threaten to shut down a natural gas plant to get cooperation about leaks and flares caused by negligence, and still fined Spectra, why should we believe Spectra’s claims of silence or safety for its invading Albany, Georgia Sabal Trail compressor station?

Canada’s National Energy Board fined Spectra Energy Transmission $88,000 on 22 January 2015 for numerous incidents of negligence, failing to comply with national and internal safety procedures, and

The company failed to take reasonable care to ensure safety hazards had been properly identified.

Get this:

However, despite previous findings of similar non-compliances at other facilities (Aitken Creek Gas Plant and Fort Nelson North Processing Facility), the company failed to take preventative action in advance of the NEB inspection at the Dawson Creek location.

Spectra didn’t even bother to clean up its act when it knew inspectors were coming.

Speaking of Fort Nelson, Continue reading Spectra’s Canadian negligence and Fort Nelson leak and flare

Natural gas pipeline carried oil which leaked: owned by a Spectra company

You don’t know when a natural gas pipeline might be carrying oil. You do know pipelines corrode and leak, and this one did. It’s owned by DCP Midstream, but guess who is a director there and which company owns half of it!

Odessa American, 14 April 2015, Crews begin oil spill cleanup in West Odessa,

Crews with DCP Midstream and the Ector County Environmental Office are assessing an oil spill that took place Tuesday afternoon in West Odessa.

Environmental office officials said they were called to Moss Avenue and West Third Street about oil coming from the ground.

The low-pressure pipeline, according to Scott McMeans, supervisor at DCP Midstream, was a natural gas line that leaked due to corrosion causing oil to flow out.

McMeans said that sometimes Continue reading Natural gas pipeline carried oil which leaked: owned by a Spectra company

Farmers counter-sue Spectra over British Columbia pipeline

Pipeline suit and countersuit in British Columbia! Spectra Energy sued six Chilliwack farmers (east of Vancouver) and the farmers countersued. Which sounds quite a bit like what’s happening three thousand miles southeast of there in Leesburg, GA this Thursday July 10th, where a group of farmers is countersuing Spectra for trespass. Spectra is telling the same joke in both cases: the vast majority of landowners are for the pipeline, and opponents are only a few outliers. Troublesome farmers, not wanting their crops destroyed without even any compensation, imagine that! Those pesky outliers in Canada have delayed mighty Spectra a year already.

Alina Konevski wrote for Chilliwack Progress 11 June 2013, Farmers defiant as gas company demands access,

Members of the Fraser Valley Association of Pipeline Landowners, led by president Gord Mitchell, want a stringent contract with Spectra Energy before the company enters their land to replace an outdated pipeline under their fields.

Negotiations have failed. Mitchell was served Continue reading Farmers counter-sue Spectra over British Columbia pipeline

Spectra and TransCanada competing in LNG export in British Columbia

TransCanada, of the notorious Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, is also competing with Spectra Energy for fracked methane export through an LNG export terminal on the British Columbia coast, and Spectra just got another approval for its “corridor” for not one but two giant pipelines to the Pacific Ocean.

Gordon Jaremko wrote for GPI 4 April 2014, NEB OKs Spectra (Westcoast) Tolls; Major Expansion Planned to Serve Pacific LNG,

Spectra Energy (Westcoast) received approval from the National Energy Board (NEB) for the stable base of its agenda: a 2014-2015 tolls and tariff settlement with customers of its current capacity of 3 Bcf/d.

The deal enables the BC grid to focus on a plan aimed at almost quadrupling its capacity by becoming the principal conduit between northern shale deposits and proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals on the Pacific Coast.

The settlement was not opposed or even questioned Continue reading Spectra and TransCanada competing in LNG export in British Columbia