TPT November 2016

G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E

Jack Healy of the New York Times explained that the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation lies just south of the charted path of the Dakota Access pipeline across ranchland and under the Missouri River, had asked a federal judge to halt construction. The tribe argued that a leak or spill could be ruinous. At this writing it is not known whether the pipeline will be allowed to move ahead, or if an injunction will pause it or stop it altogether. But the protest against it by Native Americans from tribes across the country, gathered since April outside Cannon Ball, a town in south central North Dakota near the South Dakota border, has attracted attention beyond the usual. (“North Dakota Oil Pipeline Battle: Who’s Fighting and Why,” 26 August) Describing the mood at the scene as “calm but anxious,” Mr Healy reported that North Dakota’s governor had declared a state of emergency, and law enforcement had barricaded the main highway leading to the site where hundreds of protesters were encamped in a field belonging to the United States Army Corps of Engineers. There were reports of confrontations with law enforcement officers and construction workers, and 20 people had been arrested. Construction on a road to the pipeline was stopped, at least temporarily. The pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners, has sued several protesters, claiming threats and intimidation toward contractors and blockage of work at the site. A ROUTE THROUGH SACRED LANDS Mr Healy reported that the Dakota Access pipeline is a $3.7 billion project that would carry 470,000 barrels of oil a day from the oil fields of western North Dakota to Illinois, where it would be linked with other pipelines. Energy Transfer says the pipeline will pump millions of dollars into local economies and create 8,000 to 12,000 construction jobs. (Permanent long- term jobs – for maintenance and monitoring of the pipeline – will be far fewer.) The Standing Rock Sioux see the pipeline as a major environmental and cultural threat. They say its route traverses ancestral lands – which are not part of the reservation – where their forebears hunted, fished, and are buried. They say historical and cultural reviews of the land where the pipeline will be buried were inadequate. They also worry about catastrophic environmental damage if the pipeline were to break near the point where it crosses under the Missouri River. The Sioux are not alone in their resistance. While the pipeline has approval from state and federal agencies, and farmers and ranchers have welcomed the thousands of dollars in payments that came with signing agreements to allow it to cross their land, others oppose it. “In Iowa, one of the four states that the pipeline would traverse, some farmers have gone to court to keep it off their land,” wrote Mr Healy. “They say that Iowa regulators were wrong to grant the pipeline company the power of eminent domain to force its way through their farms.” But he noted that most landowners in the 346-mile path of the pipeline through Iowa have signed easements allowing it to be built across their land.

T HE PERENNIAL QUESTION : PIPELINE SAFETY Mr Healy placed the battle – “an environmental and cultural flash point” – in the context of the 2.5 million miles of pipelines that criss-cross the US carrying and pumping oil and natural gas to processing and treatment plants, power plants, businesses and homes. Most of these lines are buried, but some run above ground. While a natural gas line to a new subdivision seldom generates national controversy, proposed major pipelines like the Dakota Access; the Keystone XL (which would have connected the oil sands in Alberta, Canada, with the US state of Nebraska); or the Sandpiper in northern Minnesota have provoked strong opposition from environmental groups and people living in their paths. Tackling the question of pipeline safety, the Times noted that energy companies and their federal overseer, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) , promote the safety record of pipelines. The companies claim that it is far safer to move oil and natural gas in underground pipes than in rail cars or trucks which can crash and explode. “But pipeline spills and ruptures occur regularly, sometimes in small leaks and sometimes in catastrophic gushers,” wrote Mr Healy. In 2013, a pipeline in North Dakota broke open and spilled 865,000 gallons of oil onto a farm. In 2010, a pipeline dumped more than 843,000 gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, resulting in a cleanup that lasted years and cost more than a billion dollars, according to Inside Climate News . › In a 2012 examination of pipeline safety, ProPublica – a New York-based independent source of investigative journalism in the public interest – reported that more than half of the pipelines in the United States were at least 50 years old. Critics cite ageing pipelines and scant federal oversight as factors that put public health and the environment at risk. Elsewhere in oil and gas . . . › India’s state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp has reached an agreement with GE Oil & Gas, of the US, for support to ONGC’s exploratory campaign in shallow-to-medium waters. Over a three-year period, GE will provide an estimated 55 subsea wellheads for the operator’s drilling and completion projects. As reported from New Delhi in the Economic Times (24 August), GE said in a statement that for more than 30 years it has supplied ONGC with subsea production equipment including large-sized conductors, subsea wellheads and subsea trees. The first wellhead under the new contract is to be delivered by the New Year, with GE doing the manufacturing in India (Kakinada) for the first time. Engineering and project management will be provided from Singapore by GE regional teams. Ashish Bhandari, CEO-South Asia at GE Oil & Gas, told the Economic Times , “With India’s new energy policy and gas pricing policy in place, we are seeing an uptick in ONGC’s exploration and development activity.”

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N OVEMBER 2016