Citation

Walls WD, Zheng X. Resource Energ. Econ. 2021; 64: e101215.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.reseneeco.2020.101215

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of more stringent environmental regulationspecifically, paying amortized abandonment fees as accrued and absolute liability for adverse eventson the safety performance of Canadian oil and gas pipelines. We construct a comprehensive dataset that includes pipeline adverse events, throughput, and regulatory intensiveness for fourteen federally-regulated energy pipelines in Canada. We find that abandonment fees are significantly and positively associated with pipeline events. On average, a 1% increase in abandonment fees is associated with 1.3 more events per month. In contrast, establishing absolute liability is associated with significant decreases in the number of pipeline events: on average, absolute liability is responsible for eliminating 80% of quarterly events for Canadian major oil pipelines and 20% for smaller pipelines.

Keywords: Pipeline transportation

Language: en

Keywords

Pipelines; Environmental regulations