Leaking Saskatchewan pipeline built in 1968, no record of provincial inspections
CALGARY — A pipeline that leaked 200,000 litres of oil into a frozen pond in the southeast corner of the Saskatchewan is nearly 50 years old and there’s no record of it ever being inspected by provincial authorities, the government said Thursday.
The spill on the Ocean Man First Nation was discovered and reported last Friday but initially neither the government nor suspected owner Tundra Energy Marketing Ltd. of Calgary said they knew for sure where the oil had come from.
An excavation Wednesday identified the two-kilometre pipe as belonging to Tundra.
On Thursday, Doug MacKnight, assistant deputy minister of Economy, said a small hole on top of the four-inch-diameter pipe on a weld connecting two segments had been found and the damaged portion removed for further analysis and metallurgic testing.