Pleads guilty: Nexen fined $750K for huge pipeline spill in northern Alberta
CALGARY — A Calgary energy company has pleaded guilty to federal and provincial environmental charges over one of the largest pipeline spills in Alberta history.
Nexen has been ordered to pay a total of $750,000 in fines for the Long Lake spill southeast of Fort McMurray that released five million litres of bitumen, sand and produced water over an area of 16,000 square metres of lake and muskeg in 2015.
“A number of landbird, shorebird, waterbird and waterfowl species protected by the Migratory Birds Convention Act use and were observed in the impacted area and adjacent unnamed lake,” said the agreed statement of facts.
Nexen, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned firm CNOOC Ltd., acknowledged the pipeline southeast of Fort McMurray was leaking for more than four weeks before it was discovered by workers in the area.