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ENBRIDGE has announced plans to spend up to C$500m (US$490m) strengthening its Northern Gateway pipeline, following heavy criticism of its safety and reliability.

On the same day Alberta – the oil-rich province set to host much of the Northern Gateway – announced that it would launch a review of pipeline safety, following a series of spills and leaks from its 400,000 km-long network. Last year alone, the Albertan Energy Resources Conservation Board reported almost 650 pipeline incidents, ranging from minor leaks to a 28,000 bbl spill from Plains Midstream Canada’s Rainbow pipeline.

“The energy industry is the economic lifeblood of our province, and at the same time we want to ensure that Albertans have clean water, clean land and clean air,” says Albertan energy minister Ken Hughes.

Enbridge’s new safety measures will increase the project’s costs by around 10%, bringing it up to almost C$6bn in total. The company, one of the biggest pipeline operators in North America, says it will spend the money on a number of safety measures, including an increased wall thickness, additional isolation valves and extra-thick piping where the line crosses rivers. Remote pumping stations will also be manned 24-hours-a-day.

Janet Holder, Enbridge executive vice president, claims that the move does not mean that the company’s previous plans were inadequate. Instead, she claims that it will “make what is already a very safe project even safer.”

“It has become clear – we have to do everything we can to ensure confidence in the project,” she adds. “We’ve listened.”

The Northern Gateway project is designed to ship more than 500,000 bbl/d of liquids from oil sands in Alberta to ports in western Canada, where it would then be sold to mainly Asian buyers. The 1,176 km pipeline will also transport 190,000 bbl/d of condensates back to Alberta.

It has attracted heavy criticism from environmental campaigners, who have questioned Enbridge’s somewhat shaky safety record. Only last month, around 1,400 bbl of oil leaked from an Enbridge pumping station in a remote area of Alberta, while a recent US government report slammed the company for its response to the 2010 Kalamazoo spill in Michigan.

Deborah Hersman, chair of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said there had been “a complete breakdown of safety at Enbridge,” and accused its employees of acting “like Keystone Kops.” Despite a loss of pipeline pressure and multiple warnings, the NTSB claims, workers restarted the line twice, spending 17 hours pumping oil through a gash over 2 m long.

Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel, however, maintains that its employees “were trying to do the right thing.” He adds that: “As with most such incidents, a series of unfortunate events and circumstances resulted in an outcome no one wanted.”