Pipelines being targeted in Northern BC.

By BJ

It appears someone is targeting the oil and gas industry around Dawson Creek, possibly using explosives stolen from a nearby work site a few months ago.

A second explosion has occurred along an EnCana pipeline east of Dawson Creek, B.C.

RCMP say the explosive charge was deliberately set next to a natural gas pipeline and detonated sometime overnight Wednesday, but was not discovered until 9 a.m. MT Thursday.

Investigators believe it is linked to an incident on the weekend that damaged but did not rupture a sour gas line in the same area.

The sour gas line that was targeted was a particularly dangerous target given the toxicity of hydrogen sulphide.  When I first heard about the original attack, my mind went to the “Nigeria North” video, but this is on the opposite side of the province.  Still, this is exactly the kind of tactics local people anywhere in the world can use to disrupt oil and gas operations, and its use in northern Canada shouldn’t be too unexpected.

And talk about protecting such critical infrastructure should be taken with a grain of salt.  Pipelines run thousands upon thousands of miles.  There simply isn’t any cost-effective way to properly guard them, as we’ve seen in Iraq and Nigeria.

Now, this is probably just one individual or small group at this point, but if the idea catches on in other areas where the local people are not too happy about multi-nationals and the government turning their lakes into toxic waste dumps, things have the potential to get really, really ugly, particularly in tight economic times.

Comments

[Russ Wellen]

Also known as systems disruption, per John "Global Guerillas" Robb (http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/)

[Cheryl Rofer]

Scott Palin's secessionist group?

[Cheryl Rofer]

Whoops - that's Todd Palin, isn't it?

I can't keep all those names straight...