Editorial comment
In a few ways, the pipeline industry is currently revisiting the past.
Texas-based Energy Transfer’s lawsuit against Greenpeace has made it to the courts in North Dakota. The trial, which is expected to last into April, sees Energy Transfer allege that protest tactics by the environmental organisation delayed the Dakota Access Pipeline project.
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The lawsuit accuses Greenpeace of an “unlawful and violent scheme to cause financial harm to Energy Transfer, physical harm to its employees and infrastructure, and to disrupt and prevent Energy Transfer’s construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline”.
Greenpeace says it did not lead the protests, which took place near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, saying that it instead helped support “nonviolent, direct-action training” on safety and de-escalation on-site.
You’ll recall that the protests drew crowds of over 10 000 to the encampment, as they attempted to block the path of the pipeline from crossing the Missouri River, upstream from Standing Rock. The protests started in April 2016 and ended in February 2017 when the National Guard and police cleared the site.
Energy Transfer brought a similar federal lawsuit in 2017, arguing that protesters had violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act (Rico), which is an allegation commonly made against organised crime groups. A judge dismissed the case.
The new state trial is taking place in conservative North Dakota. If it is found that Greenpeace tried to delay construction of the pipeline, defamed the companies behind it, and coordinated trespassing, vandalism and violence by pipeline protesters, then damages could run to US$300 million. Greenpeace says it would “face financial ruin, ending over 50 years of environmental activism”.
In another blast from the past, President Trump has declared that he wants the Keystone XL pipeline built, pledging easy regulatory approvals for the previously cancelled project. The permit for KXL was revoked by the Biden administration in 2021, following years of opposition and delays under Obama (who rejected it in 2015).
The multi-billion dollar, 1200 mile pipeline project was designed to bring oilsands from western Canada to US refiners and was owned by TC Energy Corp.
South Bow Corp., the oil pipeline business that spun off from TC Energy Corp., has indicated that it is not interested in a revival of the project. Parts of the system, which runs through Alberta, Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, have already been dismantled, and key permits have long since expired.
“If not them, perhaps another pipeline company,” Trump said in a post on his social media network. “We want the Keystone XL Pipeline built!”
Back to 2025 and the challenges of getting new pipeline infrastructure in the ground still remain: in the keynote article for this issue, our correspondent Gordon Cope writes about how the building of hydrogen pipeline transport has gone “from science fiction to reality” (p.8). ILF writes about the specific regulatory, financial, stakeholder and supply chain hurdles that are bottlenecking hydrogen pipeline projects in Europe (p.15). PipeSak describes working with several pipeline operators (TC Energy, Williams, Enbridge) on protecting pipe coatings during construction (p.42). And I speak to the two winners of the PPIM 2025 YPI Award for Young Achievement about what it’s like to be a young pipeliner in 2025, and how the future looks to this new generation of pipeline workers.
