Enbridge Pipeline Explosion: Impacts on Electricity and Natural Gas
Posted on January 31, 2019 by Will Gehrke
Tags, Energy
At 5:30 PST on October 9, 2018, a portion of the Enbridge pipeline ruptured in British Columbia, Canada. The Enbridge pipeline consists of two parallel pipelines, the larger of which is three feet in diameter. The rupture ignited in a sparsely populated rural area and first responders arrived quickly; no injuries were caused by the explosion.
It did, however, set off a change of events. Downstream of the pipeline in British Columbia, natural gas service was cut to half of its normal flow. The price of future units of natural gas increased dramatically, from ~5$/MMBtu to ~65$/MMBtu at the Sumas Gas market. Across the Pacific Northwest, industrial customers’ natural gas service was cut to ensure that service to core space heating customers would not be interrupted.
In the past decade, CUB has observed that utilities tend to hedge the price of gas and electricity interchangeably. This natural gas pipeline provides approximately 50 percent of the energy used in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Many households in these states depend on natural gas as space heating for their homes. But natural gas’s use is not limited to domestic space heating; many electric utilities also depend on quick-starting natural gas generation to ramp up electricity production on peak usage days.
Without constant natural gas flowing through the system, the system could have shut down for an extended period of time. A long-term outage would have been expensive for natural gas customers. Many households would have needed to have their pilot light reset manually by their gas utility in the case of a widespread gas supply interruption.
Fortunately, Enbridge was able to repair service to the pipeline in a timely manner. CUB is thankful that there were no injuries due to the pipeline rupture. Natural gas prices have also rebounded in the intervening weeks. Looking forward, CUB will be examining the impact of this rupture on residential customers’ rates and future gas supply in Oregon.
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01/31/19 | 0 Comments | Enbridge Pipeline Explosion: Impacts on Electricity and Natural Gas