The Financial Post reports in its Wednesday, Sept. 20, edition that Enbridge and TransCanada, two of the world's top pipeline companies, are starting to use fibre optics to avoid spills. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post reports that the two companies are piloting a system that can pinpoint leaks and other disturbances down to the centimetre in real time, using a fibre-optic wire that is threaded inside or alongside a pipeline to measure acoustic, temperature and vibration information. The technology will even alert the pipeline operator if construction work is getting too close to a line. Enbridge is employing the technology on a 32- kilometre segment of the Norlite pipeline in Northern Alberta. TransCanada plans to install the system on short sections near the start of the Keystone XL pipeline in Hardisty, Alta., and around its terminus in Houston next year. The technology was developed by Calgary-based Hifi Engineering, partly owned by Enbridge and Cenovus Energy. It costs about $10 to $15 to install along a metre of new pipeline, which represents about 0.5 per cent of the cost of a new pipeline construction, according to Hi-Fi chief executive officer Steven Koles.