Operating safely and reliably
Safety is our number one priority. We are committed to continuously improving how we work to reduce health, safety and environmental risks.
Our approach
No incident is acceptable to us—ever. We remain steadfast in our commitment to achieve zero incidents. We continuously evolve our safety culture, which is underpinned by our Safety Principles and our Lifesaving Rules. Our Enbridge Management System Structure is designed to rigorously manage risks, strengthen safety capabilities and reduce potential impacts should an incident occur.
We work to prevent incidents through safety training; all our employees and contractors have the responsibility and the authority to stop unsafe behavior or work conditions at any time.
Over the past three years, through 2019, we’ve invested more than $4 billion on programs that help us to maintain the fitness of our systems across our North American operations. We regularly test our response procedures to ensure we have the resources and capabilities to respond to an incident.
In 2019, we experienced incidents in our gas transmission business, one of which caused a fatality—and our hearts go out to the family. We launched an intensive assessment of our integrity program to identify areas of improvement and implement those changes. As a result, we’re inspecting more frequently and with heightened scrutiny for potential issues.
Highlights
We saw a slight increase in our employee and contractor incident rates. However, for the past three years, the incident rate has been below industry average.
1The number of reported work-related incidents that result in a fatality or injury.
We investigate incidents to understand underlying causes and share learnings and we take steps to mitigate future incidents. We use these lessons learned to improve our technical or behavioral actions.
1Tier 1 events are unplanned and/or uncontrolled commodity releases that result in either a significant consequences and/or higher release volumes. These events may result in a serious injury to a person, an officially declared community evacuation or shelter in place, a fire or an explosion
2Tier 2 events, are unplanned and/or uncontrolled commodity releases with lesser consequences. These events may result in a minor injury to a person, a fire or explosion that can be contained and extinguished with little to no damage, or localized environmental damage.
Process safety incident count in 2019 is based on business-specific industry criteria. For 2020, criteria is being harmonized based on a broader industry standard which will allow comparison across our businesses on a more consistent basis.
Spotlights
‘A team event’: Testing our preparedness
Enbridge invests in emergency response tools and training to stay prepared. Emergency response drills help test and improve our emergency preparedness and response systems.
Harnessing innovation in the name of safety
Enbridge continually looks for opportunities to enhance existing technologies and advance new ones, in the areas of design, prevention, monitoring and leak detection to keep our pipelines and distribution systems safe.
Bringing safety advocates to the table
Enbridge participates in hundreds of drills, tabletop exercises and equipment deployment events in all North American regions where we operate to test and sharpen our emergency preparedness.
Learn moreRelated links
More information about our commitment to safe, reliable energy transportation.
