Joining forces to test technology, advance pipeline safety

Enbridge, TransCanada team up on ELDER test apparatus project

We’ve often said at Enbridge that we don’t compete on safety. And here’s a perfect case in point.

Recently, Enbridge and TransCanada Corporation announced a Joint Industry Partnership (JIP) agreement to perform some groundbreaking research in the area of leak detection.

Here’s the crux of the matter: We’re talking about two pipeline industry rivals dedicated to working together – and making a sizable investment in innovation and technology – to further enhance safety across the entire pipeline industry.

Engineers at Enbridge and TransCanada will be conducting tests in 2014 on the leading external detection technologies. And they’ll be using an apparatus called the External Leak Detection Experimental Research (ELDER) test apparatus – a state-of the-art simulator that’s been developed by Enbridge over the past two years in Edmonton, along with project research partner C-FER Technologies.

(UPDATE: Alberta Oil magazine also caught up with our partners at C-FER Technologies, and wrote about the ELDER test apparatus in its August issue.)

This agreement involves $4-million in funding -- $1.3-million from TransCanada, $1.6-million from Enbridge, and $1.1-million from the Alberta Ministry of Enterprise and Advanced Education. Enbridge had previously invested $3-million developing the ELDER leak-detection simulator, which is the first tool of its kind in the world at this scale.

Enbridge and TransCanada will share equally in the knowledge and the advancements provided by this research, and apply them directly to improve leak detection capabilities in their respective operations.

The public wants safe and responsible development in the pipeline industry, and we hear you loud and clear.

At Enbridge, we believe that the pipeline industry needs to start thinking of itself the way the airline and aerospace industries do – with an approach that no incident is acceptable. We’re targeting zero . . . and this is another way we intend to get there.