The Lorelay and her crew have been cleared to resume their duties laying underwater pipeline to Deep Panuke, the natural gas project off the coast of Nova Scotia.
The specialized vessel was damaged on Oct. 16 when winds of more than 110 kilometres an hour blew the ship 460 metres off course. Sections of concrete pipe were still attached to the Lorelay and several hours later, a worker with a blowtorch cut the cable and dropped the pipe.
Stuart Pinks, the chief executive officer of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, said a safety officer had reviewed the process.
"Our safety officer spent considerable time reviewing the practices that they used to cut to assure himself that those workers were not at any risk — at any unnecessary risk — when they cut that cable," he told CBC News. "That was his determination."
The crew of the Lorelay has been welding together 20-metre sections of pipe into a 172-kilometre pipeline.
Pinks said what happened that night has affected how EnCana Corp., the Calgary company building the line, will operate in future.
"What they were doing in the past is laying the pipeline down, but staying connected to the pipeline with what they call an abandonment and retrieval cable," he said.
"In a go-forward situation, if the weather was to come up that they were to lay the pipe on the seabed, they would not stay connected with a cable, they would disconnect that cable right away."
EnCana has told the board that it could take between three days and two weeks to finish laying the last three kilometres of the underwater pipeline.
The sections of pipeline that were cut free must be retrieved and reviewed for any damage. Pinks said a safety officer will also hold a meeting with the ship's occupational safety committee.
