Request for Information (RFI) for abandonment work, including studies and assessments

The Canada Energy Regulator (CER) regulates pipelines, energy development and trade in the Canadian public interest. The CER is committed to protecting the environment and the public from adverse effects resulting from CER-regulated facilities.

The CER regulates Strategic’s Cameron Hills transborder pipeline (Pipeline) which runs from Alberta to the Northwest Territories (H-03 60-10N 117.30W to LSD 5-24-126-22W5M). The 12 inch sour two phase (sour oil and gas) Pipeline is located on territorial lands within the Decho Region of the Northwest Territories. The NEB (now the CER) issued a Deactivation Order on 23 May 2019 (MO-021-2019) to maintain the Pipeline in a deactivated status in accordance with the specifications, standards and commitments made in its Application (A97701).

On 28 January 2020, the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta granted a Receivership Order for Strategic. The CER Act provides the CER with the authority to designate a pipeline as an orphan pipeline if a company is subject to a receivership (section 243(1) of the CER Act). It also provides the CER with the authority to designate an abandoned pipeline as an orphan abandoned pipeline (section 244 of the CER Act). 

In order to assess the potential abandonment costs associated with this Pipeline, the CER requires a qualified third-party contractor to provide the approximate costs associated in undertaking the required tasks, including studies and abandonment work.

The CER is seeking estimates for the work required to remediate (if contamination found) and abandon the Pipeline. The CER will use the information collected from the RFI to inform a claim estimate for a court process. At a later date, the CER will be undertaking a Request for Proposal Process, where contractors can bid for the individual tasks described below.

In the following, separate components of work are listed. For each task, there are a set of Request for Information (RFI) questions that the contractors must respond to. Note that the contractors have to come up with assumptions for each task in order to provide estimates.

In the event that a contractor identifies additional tasks that are not included below, the contractors can provide a description of those additional tasks along with the responses to the RFI questions.