A BP team of more than 100 employees and contractors was making “significant progress” on recovery operations at its Fort Saskatchewan Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) storage facility that caught fire in an early morning explosion Aug. 26 (see Daily GPI, Aug. 28). The facility is located about four miles northeast of Fort Saskatchewan, AB.

Richard Hookway, BP’s vice president of North American NGLs, said the company had made “great strides…on many fronts” to combat the problems associated with the fire. There were no reported injuries, but the fire has caused several pipelines to be shut in or reduced in capacity. “Our well control team has been able to greatly reduce the size of the leak and resulting fire from one of our wells. When we determine it is safe to do so, we will direct our attention to the repair of this well.” Then, he said, the company would “focus on the repair of the second well.”

BP’s operations team late last week continued start-up operations on many of the pipeline systems that were shut down because of the incident. The Peace pipeline that gathers NGLs and ethane in northwest Alberta and northeast British Columbia is now operational. Also, the Alberta Ethane Gathering System, which transports ethane within the province, was expected to be fully operational, except for the affected storage cavern.

The Co-Ed, or Cochrane-Edmonton, pipeline system that transports Alberta NGLs to Fort Saskatchewan was running at 40% capacity on Friday, and will bypass Fort Saskatchewan and deliver NGLs directly to the Enbridge pipe system until the BP system is fully operational.

The Cochin system, a 3,100 kilometer line that transports ethane, ethylene and propane from Fort Saskatchewan to Eastern Canada and the United States, was undergoing a complete safety analysis and if it goes well, BP said it hoped to have it operational by the weekend.

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