Report - Agence canadienne d'évaluation environnementale

Assessing the risks related to the project
♦ Finding — The Panel notes that the results of the individual risk analyses carried out
by the proponent indicate that the land would be used in compliance with the Major
Industrial Accidents Council of Canada criteria for land designation and use. The
Panel also notes that these criteria were recognized by departments from the two
levels of government and that they were consistent with the approach used elsewhere
in the world in regard to the siting of industrial facilities.
The pipeline
In this section, the Panel traces the history of accidents related to pipelines, examines
the security measures proposed by the proponent and analyzes the consequences of
the accident scenarios considered.
History of accidents linked to pipelines
The proponent reviewed previous accidents involving pipelines using several sources,
including reports from the Canadian Transportation Agency. Based on this review, a
summary was produced for of accidents which have occurred in North America and
Canada in the past 25 years.
The NEB also evaluated the number of pipeline ruptures per year in order to assess
the security level of federally regulated oil and gas pipelines. The study covered
intervals of twenty, ten and five years, and considered rupture causes, ignition,
deaths, injuries, pipeline age, internal inspections and the security interventions
carried out by the Board. Forty-six ruptures occurred over a twenty-year period,
twenty-three over a ten-year period and seven over the five-year period, for the
43,000 km of regulated pipelines.
Study results showed that the average time elapsed between the building of a pipeline
and a rupture was of twenty-eight years. Moreover, during the past twenty years,
pipeline ruptures resulting in three deaths and other injuries were due to fires breaking
out during the rupture of pipelines and high-pressure steam lines. The main causes of
ruptures were, in order of importance: external corrosion, cracks by corrosion under
tension and damages caused by third parties. Lastly, the number of ruptures has
decreased during the past ten years, as well as their consequences on security
(DQ64.1; DQ17.15).
Moreover, the proponent provided accident data on the gas distribution network in
Quebec for the past ten years. No data was available for all of Canada. The
information given indicated that there were fourteen accidents, five of which resulted
in an explosion. Of these, two events resulted in a total of four deaths. Actions
performed by third parties on the network were the cause of most of these accidents.
Rabaska Project – Implementation of an LNG Terminal and Related Infrastructure 153