Clay Riddell's Alberta Montney-focused Paramount Resources Ltd. (POU) added 23 cents to $16.43 on one million shares. It has not released news in about a month, but is making headlines in the wake of an apparent act of vandalism done to a pipeline that it is building in northwest Alberta. The RCMP told the Canadian Press yesterday that the vandal or vandals appear to have used heavy equipment to try to dig up the pipeline, which will now have to be replaced because of the damage sustained. The total damage is estimated at $500,000 to $700,000. The RCMP are investigating this act of so-called "mischief" and declined to speculate on who might have done it or why. They also did not identify the owner of the pipeline. The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) named the owner as Paramount.
There were no injuries reported and no damage to the environment, as the pipeline is still under construction and was not carrying any product. Darrel Purdy, a corporate operating officer of Paramount, told Reuters that construction may have to be delayed because of the vandalism. He added that Paramount will start having security on site when construction is not happening. There was no security at the time of the incident.
This lack of security is not uncommon in the energy industry, given the difficulty and costs associated with securing pipelines and other infrastructure that can be many kilometres long and relatively isolated. As a result, those inclined to vandalism can often find a way. The Canadian Press reported yesterday that there were at least 160 incidents of vandalism at oil and gas facilities just from 1996 to 1998, ranging from nails strewn across roads to bombings and shootings.
More recently, on Oct. 11, 2016, environmental protesters made their largest-ever co-ordinated move against U.S. energy infrastructure, when about a dozen of them broke into valve stations and shut off the valves, disrupting the operations of five major pipelines in four states. Canada is also no stranger to pipeline vandalism. In one two-month stretch in late 2015 and early 2016, one pipeline, Enbridge's Line 9, saw four separate incidents of tampering by environmental protesters. In another incident in 2011, a vandal tampered with a pipeline owned by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNQ: $41.14), spilling nearly 200 barrels of oil mixed with water. |
