The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that the Alberta Energy Regulator is urging pipeline operators to do a better job of developing and maintaining programs to discover leaks. A Canadian Press dispatch to The Globe reports that the AER said that after reviewing 23 major spills on pipelines, it found poor training and a lack of monitoring led to delays in detecting leaks in about 33 per cent of cases. The regulator said in eight cases, staff were insufficiently trained or failed to detect leaks for several days, and in those cases it took on average 48 days for companies to respond and isolate the pipeline. The AER said all personnel responsible for leak detection are required to be properly trained, and that competency testing and continuing evaluations are vital. The news comes only days after CNOOC's Nexen Energy released the findings of its investigation into a pipeline leak last July that spilled about five million litres of bitumen, sand and produced water southeast of Fort McMurray, Alta. On Tuesday, Ron Bailey, Nexen's head of Canadian operations, said it took close to a month to discover the leak and that was owing to a number of monitoring failures.