Vancouver – One of the most significant roadblocks in the construction of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project is getting First Nations approval, acceptance and cooperation. “Social licence,” a term to imply that those who have to live with the pipeline are okay with it, has been wanting.
But what if you had social licence in the first place?
That’s the angle that a new proposal, called “Eagle Spirit,” is trying to take. In an industry dominated by pipeline operators who have been in the business for six decades, Eagle Spirit is a start-up with big plans. More importantly, it is a First Nations-led startup.
Calvin Helin is chair and president of Eagle Spirit Energy (the company is in the process of identifying a CEO). He spoke to Pipeline News by phone on Oct. 2.
The initial project would be a 48-inch pipeline with a million barrels per day capacity, much more than the 525,000 bpd 36-inch westbound Northern Gateway., which would have also have an eastbound 193,000 bpd, 20-inch eastbound condensate pipeline.
Asked about the difference between Northern Gateway and Eagle Spirit, both of which would transport oilsands petroleum to the British Columbia coast, he said, “It’s an entirely different route. I think when the big companies came out to British Columbia from Alberta, they just assumed the environment, political and First Nations, would be the same as Alberta. In B.C., you have 32 completely different languages and a huge number of different First Nations groups, while in Alberta, you have I think three major language groups.
“There are no treaties settled out here. The First Nations in B.C. have taken (to court) almost all the leading cases to consultation and accommodation and it’s the greatest string of legal wins in the history of Canada. I think they’re now up to 250, 275. The result of one of the last ones is they have real leverage and they want their concerns heard.
“Three years ago we teamed up with the Aquilini Investment Group out of Vancouver and started going out and meeting with First Nations and listening to what they might accept, if any, oil pipelines. We then hired the top expertise in the world and built an environmental model and an economic model that would involve the First Nations being part of the project as equity holders and through the innovative development of a chiefs’ committee. They will have initial and ongoing input into the project that way.
“We spent some time going to the communities, meeting with the communities and presenting. As a result, we’ve received very significant support from the First Nations for our project, which is completely different from Enbridge and looks at a more northern route than what they’re looking at.”
Eagle Spirit is looking at not just a singular pipeline, but rather an energy corridor which would have room for oil as well as natural gas pipelines, transporting natural gas from northeastern British Columbia to the Pacific Coast for export as liquefied natural gas. It would have to be discussed with the communities, to see if they were open to that.
“We will finance their equity. So far, we haven’t had any shortage of offers for financing the project from various countries, from various groups involved with oil production. The first, most important thing, we recognized had to be done was we had to get the social licence support of First Nations, otherwise there would be no project,” Helin said.
For the initial project he estimated about $14 billion would be needed, originating at Fort McMurray and terminating on the British Columbia coast at Grassy Point, near the First Nations community of Lax Kw’alaams. That community itself is 20 kilometres north of Prince Rupert.
He called it, “The most environmentally safe port to implement something like this, because it’s within minutes of open water.”
One of the criticisms of the Northern Gateway project, with its port at Kitimat, is the requirement of oil tankers to travel hundreds of kilometres each way down the narrow Douglas Channel. The trip is of such concern that Enbridge’s proposal calls for tankers to travel the channel while tied up to a tug boat the whole trip, just in case something happens.
He said Prince Rupert is not a bad place, but involves very narrow channels. “This location is a big open bay shielded by an island. You’re five minutes from open water,” he said.
Could this approach be applied to places like Saskatchewan, where teepees were put on the right-of-way by First Nations in protest during the 2008 construction of the Enbridge Alberta Clipper project?
“What these big companies have done in the past is make all the decisions about what they want to do, and their attitude is ‘it’s the government’s responsibility.’ They wait for the government to ram through whatever they’ve already decided. By the time it gets to First Nations, they have no input into it. There’s lip service to listening to their concerns, but, general nothing is changed very much.”
Indeed, a Pipeline News file photo from that 2008 protest near Kerrobert show a sign taped to the Techint/Somerville yard sign. It read: “We did not consent, were not consulted, nor are we being consulted.”
“What we’re doing is going to the communities first, listening to their concerns and crafting the proposal to suit the concerns they have. At the top of the list, always, is environmental issues. So we’ve spent a lot of time and effort designing what will be the safest, most environmentally strong model for a pipeline, probably in the world,” Helin said.
At an open house in Regina a few years ago, First Nations protesters called the proposed Energy East Pipeline a “scar on Mother Earth.” How would Helin address such concerns?
He replied, “We’ve probably been to probably 1,000 community meetings in three years. People do have legitimate concerns. When you listen to them and show them the right respect and protocols and so on, they’re often open to looking at other possibilities. At the same time, if you also find a group of people who aren’t open to anything. In one community we were in, there was a handful of people adamantly opposed to anything to do with pipelines. That community, this summer, had a referendum on our project, and voted two-to-one to support our project.
“Often people only hear the protestors, and very often there’s a large group of people who may be more openminded. You just don’t hear from them, because they don’t want to confront people at public meetings.
“The main thing is to listen to people, and hear what their concerns are. I’m a First Nations person from Lax Kw’alaams. My dad was hereditary chief there, and he was a commercial fisherman. The reason we got involved with this was to bring a better level of environmental protection to our own area, as individuals.
He added that at the same time, we have to recognize, oil production in Canada is growing, Helin noted, “It’s going to come one way or another. First Nations should be involved in it and protecting the environment and getting more benefits from it.”
There’s still a need for other markets, especially with the discounts Canada is getting for its oil due to selling to just one customer, the United States, he noted.
While Eagle Spirit has not operated pipelines for decades like the other major operators, that doesn’t concern Helin, who says that expertise can be hired. “We’ve got offers from major operators throughout the world and North America. Any expertise we need can be purchased. The chief technical advisor to our project is a fellow that was the former chief operating officer of the Alyeska Pipeline,” he said.
That pipeline, sometimes called the Alaska Pipeline, had to dramatically improve its environmental performance after the Exxon Valdez spill, he noted.
“A lot of the environmental protection things they are doing are run by First Nations corporations from Alaska.”
There are some other distinctions as well between Northern Gateway and Eagle Spirit. In a follow-up email, Helin noted they would be shipping an upgraded product, not bitumen (which sinks when it becomes weathered in a water column).
The Eagle Spirit design would include thicker pipeline steel than required at critical locations and double-walled pipeline for major rivers and streams.
Helin added, “There is also great fear from mainland FNs that the Bitumen will be shipped to Prince Rupert by rail (think the Lac Megantic disaster where 47 people were killed) and then be loaded on to ships for exports exposing their communities (and the shores of Haida Gwaii) to this danger to personal life and the environment. Also, given that the Supreme Court of Canada in the recent Tsihloqt’in decision clearly stated that aboriginal title could be expropriated given a natural resource project is of “compelling and substantial public purpose” (with the federal government already stating that a pipeline to B.C. tidewater being the most important single economic issue in Canada). This could result in Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project proceeding which would threaten both Haida Gwaii’s western and northern/southern shores with bitumen and a much lower threshold environmental protection.”
To that end, their spill response capacity could be used to protect Haida Gwaii as well, beyond their own project’s responsibilities.
“The assets for this project could be used to protect Haida Gwaii in the event that one of the oil tankers now regularly transiting within 70 kilometres of it shores from Alaska to Washington/California State has a problem. This will create a new benchmark in the protection of the coastal environment through our project.”
