TORONTO — Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, a major supplier of crude and propane to Ontario, remains shut a full week after a contractor truck struck the line in northern Wisconsin.A parked contractor flatbed hit a Line 5 valve site near Saxon, Wis., on August 25 and released propane and butane. Enbridge shut the line the same day. Western Standard first reported the strike on August 26.Enbridge isolated the damaged section at once. In an August 31 update the company said the line is still down and that it is working toward a restart by Saturday, September 5. That date is an estimate, not a guarantee.Enbridge now put the vaporized product at about 31,000 barrels, or 1.3 million gallons. About 2,000 barrels, or 84,000 gallons, are still being flared from the isolated pipe. Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources said Enbridge reported the discharge to the state spill hotline about one hour and 15 minutes after the strike..The 645-mile line runs from Superior, Wisconsin, through Michigan to Sarnia. It can move up to 540,000 barrels a day of light crude and natural gas liquids and serves 10 refineries and propane plants in the Midwest and Eastern Canada.Wisconsin DNR Secretary Karen Hyun asked Enbridge to pause work on the $1-billion reroute around the Bad River Band reservation until the leak is handled and new safety steps are in place. Enbridge halted that construction and ordered a safety stand-down.Enbridge says it is working with refineries to limit the hit from the outage. No Suncor, Imperial or Shell statement has said a Sarnia unit is offline. Queen’s Park and Ottawa have not briefed on this outage. No published propane or gasoline spike has been tied to the week.Ontario is not out of fuel after seven days. Refineries can run on stored barrels and other Enbridge lines for a short outage. If this stretched past a couple of weeks, it would hit industrial propane and then the pump..The longer risk is still real. Canada has told U.S. courts Line 5 supplies more than 50% of the feedstock Ontario refineries use for gasoline and other fuels, and more than 60% of Quebec’s crude. It is the only pipe that moves western Canadian natural gas liquids to the Sarnia fractionator that feeds propane in Ontario, Quebec and Michigan. Enbridge’s own fact sheet says a full shutdown would cut Enbridge crude to regional refineries by about 45%.Sarnia-Lambton holds three of Ontario’s four refineries and more than 70% of the province’s refining capacity. Premier Doug Ford and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith have already pitched an all-Canadian Northern Shield line for that reason.The factor that Ford needs to consider in the midst of a trade war with it's closest neighbour is how one truck in Wisconsin can idle the pipe Ontario still has no Canadian replacement for..WATCH: Line 5 damage in Wisconsin hits amid Ford-Trump tariff clash
