On November 22, a rare piping failure and sour natural gas leak occurred at one of our well sites located approximately 10 kilometers south of the village of Pouce Coupe, British Columbia. Immediately following the incident we initiated a thorough review of our operations and we continue to consult closely with residents impacted by this incident to address their concerns.

We know this event was disruptive and caused anxiety for some area residents. This incident is extremely unusual; we’ve never seen this type of well site piping failure in our operations. Safety is a core value at Encana – for our employees, contractors and residents in the communities where we work. Encana takes full responsibility for addressing the issues the incident has caused and is taking action to prevent this type of failure from happening again.

While some time has passed since this incident, our focus has been on consulting with impacted residents, implementing changes resulting from our findings to-date and providing information to the British Columbia Oil & Gas Commission (OGC) for their independent investigation.

We’ve undertaken the following actions to enhance public and worker safety:

• performed facility risk assessment reviews on 500 well sites, confirming the safety of each site and shutting-in those wells where it was assessed that modifications were required;
• assessed the air quality monitoring equipment we use to detect H2S on our sites and reduced the H2S detection set points that send an alarm to the control room and automatically close the ESD valve; and 
• we are planning educational sessions on emergency response management and H2S awareness for residents living near our operations.

We remain focused on continued education and consultation with residents in this region and reinforcing the safety and integrity of our operations.

Read more about our findings.