Pipeline Safety Act Financial Regulations

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Regulatory Initiative:

Pipeline Financial Requirements Regulations

Description of the objective:

Enabling Act: Pipeline Safety Act, which amended the National Energy Board Act and the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act

The regulations support the establishment of a ‘no-fault’ absolute liability regime for companies operating federally-regulated pipelines to ensure these companies are adequately prepared to cover response, remediation costs, and liability claims, in the event of an incident resulting from their pipelines. The regulations establish:

• classes of pipeline operators and associated absolute liability limits;
• types of financial instruments the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) could order a pipeline operator to use to meet the financial resource requirement;
• the amount of financial resource requirement that pipeline operators must hold in a readily accessible form to allow for a quick response to a spill incident; and
• basic parameters for an industry-led pooled fund that pipeline operators could choose to establish and use to meet part of their respective financial resource requirement.

Indication of business impacts:

There are no expected business impacts.

Public consultation opportunities:

Engagement activities were undertaken with industry and other stakeholders from December 2015 – April 2016.

The draft regulations were pre-published in Part I of the Canada Gazette on October 8, 2016, for public comment. Final regulations were published in Part II of the Canada Gazette on July 11, 2018.

Departmental Contact:

Karen Wiesner
Senior Policy Analyst, CER Regulatory Policy, Natural Resources Canada
580 Booth Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E4
karen.wiesner@canada.ca