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ATCO Ltd.

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FY2015 Annual Report · ATCO Ltd.
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ATCO Ltd. | 2015 | Annual Report 

CHAPTER TITLE FOR EASY REFERENCE  1

Table of Contents

Financial Highlights

Return on Investment

Letter to Share Owners

ATCOenergy

Competing Globally Through 
Innovative Solutions

StructureS & LogiSticS 
gLobaL buSineSS unit

 Modular Structures

 Lodging and Support Services

  Logistics and Facility Operations 

and Maintenance Services

1

2

3

5

7

9

10

12

13

GLOBAL

Ronald D. Southern
C.C., C.B.E., A.O.E., B.Sc., LL.D • 1930 – 2016

On January 21, 2016 the world lost a giant.  
A man who has touched the lives of so many 
with his fierce determination and tireless pursuit 
of excellence. A true citizen of the globe and 
a brilliant mind. His is a legacy that will be 
remembered for generations to come. 

As Founder of ATCO Group, he played a pivotal 
and visionary role in every major development in 
the evolution and growth of the company.

2  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

14

16

17

19

20

22

25

26

27

31

32

34

37

41

43

45

46

47

48

49

50

 Sustainable Communities

eLectricity 
gLobaL buSineSS unit

  Electricity Transmission 

and Distribution

 Power Generation

 Distributed Generation

 Northern Operations

 International Operations

PiPeLineS & LiquidS 
gLobaL buSineSS unit

 Natural Gas Distribution

 Natural Gas Transmission

  Hydrocarbon Storage 
and Industrial Water

 International Operations

Indigenous Partnerships

ATCO in the Community

FinanciaL exceLLence 2015

 Consolidated Annual Results

 Consolidated Operating Summary

ATCO Ltd. Directors

ATCO Ltd. Officers

ATCO’s Beautiful Alberta Heritage

General Information

ATCO STRUCTURES
& LOGISTICS

INTERNATIONAL

ATCO SUSTAINABLE
COMMUNITIES 

STRUCTURES 
& LOGISTICS

ATCO ELECTRIC

INTERNATIONAL

ATCO
POWER 

ATCO 
GAS

ATCO PIPELINES 

ATCO ENERGY
SOLUTIONS 

ELECTRICITY

INTERNATIONAL

ATCOenergy

PIPELINES
& LIQUIDS

With nearly 8,000 employees and assets 

of approximately $19 billion, ATCO is a 

diversified global corporation delivering 

service excellence and innovative business 

solutions in Structures & Logistics (workforce 

housing, innovative modular facilities, 

construction, site support services, and 

logistics and operations management); 

Electricity (power generation, distributed 

generation, and electricity distribution, 

transmission and infrastructure development); 

Pipelines & Liquids (natural gas transmission, 

distribution and infrastructure development, 

hydrocarbon storage, and industrial water 

solutions); and Retail Energy (electricity and 

natural gas retail sales). More information can 

be found at www.ATCO.com.

 
ATCO’s Global Capabilities

STRUCTURES 
& LOGISTICS
Complete infrastructure solutions 
to customers worldwide including 
modular structures, lodging 
and support services, logistics 
and facility operations and 
maintenance and a full range of 
pre-fabricated, culturally sensitive 
building solutions for Indigenous 
and other remote communities.

  Manufacturing Facilities

  offices and/or operations

 indigenous community 
Projects

 indigenous Partnerships

Building and sustaining 
Indigenous relationships helps 
form the foundation for how 
ATCO does business and 
is reflected through both its 
longstanding relationships with 
Indigenous communities and how 
the company engages with these 
communities every day.

atcoenergy Service area
Sells low-cost electricity and natural 
gas service to residential and 
business customers in Alberta.

ELECTRICITY
Provides comprehensive solutions 
for global customers in power 
generation, distributed generation 
and electricity transmission, 
distribution and infrastructure 
development.

electric Service area*

Delivers safe, reliable electricity to 
nearly 227,000 farm, business and 
residential customers in 245
communities in Alberta and more 
than 28,000 customers in Canada’s 
North.

  Major transmission Projects 
Plans, develops, operates 
and maintains transmission 
infrastructure that transports 
electricity from generating stations 
to substations.

 Fort McMurray West 
Proposed routes

Power Plants 

Builds, owns and operates 
independent power generation 
plants providing industry-leading, 
reliable, responsible and cost-
effective solutions to customers 
and partners with 13 plants in 
Canada and 2 plants in Australia.

ATCO has business development offices in its key 
geographic markets that are focused on supporting growth 
for ATCO’s global business units in those markets:

atco australia

atco Mexico

PIPELINES & LIQUIDS 
Delivers vertically integrated 
solutions in natural gas 
transmission, distribution and 
infrastructure development,  
hydrocarbon storage and 
processing, and industrial water 
solutions.

natural gas Service area* 

Provides safe, reliable and 
cost-effective natural gas 
delivery to more than 1.1 million 
customers in nearly 300 Alberta 
communities and approximately 
725,000 customers through 
Western Australia’s largest gas 
distribution network.

Pipelines 

Owns and operates key natural 
gas transmission facilities 
throughout Alberta transporting 
clean, efficient energy from 
producers and other pipelines, to 
utilities, power generators 
and major industries.

 Hydrocarbon Storage 
and Processing and 
industrial Water Solutions

Builds, owns and operates 
natural gas, natural gas liquids 
and industrial water-related 
infrastructure to serve the 
midstream sector of Western 
Canada’s energy industry, offering 
solutions in product storage, 
processing and transportation. 
Delivers energy to residential and 
commercial customers in the 
Town of Inuvik.  

atco and denendeh 
investments incorporated 
sign a landmark agreement 
that will see the First 
nations-owned company 
become a 50 per cent 
partner in northland utilities 
(pg. 38).

area 
enlarged

 atco Structures 
& Logistics wins a 
$470 million contract to 
design, manufacture, 
install and operate a 
1,600-person workforce 
housing facility for bc 
Hydro’s Site c clean 
energy Project (pg. 11).

Fort 
McMurray

edmonton

atco launches 
atcoenergy – a 
new natural gas 
and electricity 
retailer in 
alberta
(pg. 5).

atco electric 
completes the 
$1.8 billion 
eastern alberta 
transmission 
Line — the longest 
transmission line 
in atco’s history 
(pg. 17).

calgary

atco Pipelines begins 
construction on the 
first three segments 
of the urban Pipeline 
replacement Program 
in calgary (pg. 30).

current atco 
operations

atco gas invests 
$331 million in 
capital projects – 
installing 785 km 
of pipeline and 
connecting 
more than 
20,000 primary 
service lines to 
its network in 
alberta (pg. 27).

alberta’s 
industrial 
Heartland

edmonton

atco energy 
Solutions 
completes 
$50 million in 
projects to 
expand and 
improve its 
multi-user 
industrial 
water system 
in alberta’s 
industrial 
Heartland
(pg. 34).

* ATCO has overlapping service areas for electricity and natural gas distribution in Central Alberta.

5  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

construction begins on a 36,000 sq. ft. Multiplex Sports 
centre for the Piikani nation — the largest project in 
atco Sustainable communities’ history (pg. 15).

construction is well underway on 
atco’s ramal tula gas Pipeline (pg. 36). 
Project development and design work 
has also commenced on a cogeneration 
power plant project at the Miguel 
Hidalgo refinery (pg. 25).

Perth

atco gas australia supports 
gas-Powered air conditioning 
technology which can save 
7  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT
customers up to 40 per cent in 
operating costs (pg. 35).

CHAPTER TITLE FOR EASY REFERENCE  7

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ATCO Ltd. 
Financial 
Highlights

This data (other than 
funds generated by 
operations) has been 
extracted from financial 
statements which 
have been prepared 
in accordance with 
International Financial 
Reporting Standards 
(IFRS) and the reporting 
currency is the 
Canadian dollar.

For further information, 
please see the ATCO 
Ltd. Consolidated 
Financial Statements 
and Management’s 
Discussion and 
Analysis - 
www.sedar.com.

Consolidated Annual Results
year ended deceMber 31

(Millions of 
Canadian dollars 
except per share data) 

FINANCIAL 
Revenues 

2015 

2014

4,131 

4,554

Earnings attributable to 
Class I & Class II shares 

154 

420

Adjusted earnings 

293 

374

Total assets 

19,055 

17,689

Class I & Class II 
share owners’ equity 

Funds generated by 
operations 

3,356 

3,168

1,589 

1,786

Capital expenditures 

1,868 

2,373

CLASS I NON-VOTING 
& CLASS II VOTING 
SHARE DATA

Earnings per share 

1.34 

3.66

Diluted earnings 
per share 

Dividends paid 
per share 

Shares outstanding 
(thousands) 

Weighted average 
shares outstanding 
(thousands) 

1.33 

3.64

0.99 

0.86

115,024  115,141

114,832  114,848

Five-Year 
Total Return on 
$100 Investment

$200

$150

$100

$50

$133 $132

$112

ForWard-LooKing 
inForMation:

Certain statements contained 
in this Annual Report constitute 
forward-looking information. 
Forward-looking information is 
often, but not always, identified 
by the use of words such as 
“anticipate”, “plan”, “estimate”, 
“expect”, “may”, “will”, “intend”, 
“should”, and similar expressions. 
Forward-looking information 
involves known and unknown 
risks, uncertainties and other 
factors that may cause actual 
results or events to differ 
materially from those anticipated 
in such forward-looking 
information. The Corporation 
believes that the expectations 
reflected in the forward-looking 
information are reasonable, but no 
assurance can be given that these 
expectations will prove to be 
correct and such forward-looking 
information should not be unduly 
relied upon.

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

compound  cumulative

  growth rate  return
5.8%  $133

5.7%  $132

2.3%  $112

class i non-Voting 
(aco.x)

class ii Voting 
(aco.y)

S&P/tSx 
composite

this graph compares the 
cumulative share owner 
return over the last five years 
of the class i non-Voting 
and class ii Voting shares 
of the company (assuming 
reinvestment of dividends) 
with the cumulative total 
return of the S&P/tSx 
composite index.

ATCO SHARE 
OWNERSHIP 
FOR PRESENT 
& PROSPECTIVE 
OWNERS

it is important for prospective owners of atco shares to 

understand that atco is a diversified group of companies 

principally controlled by Sentgraf, a Southern family holding 

company. it is also important for present and prospective 

share owners to understand that the atco share registry 

has both non-voting and voting common shares.

1  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

RETURN ON INVESTMENT  2

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Letter to 
Share Owners

nancy c. Southern
Chair, President & Chief Executive Officer

Dear Share Owners,

It is with deep sadness and so many 
wonderful memories that I write this 
letter to you.

On January 21, 2016 your Company’s 
Founder, Ronald D. Southern, passed 
away peacefully at home with my mom, 
Margaret, his wife of 61 years, my 
sister, Linda, and myself by his side.

R.D., as I affectionately called him, was 
an extraordinary man of unquestionable 
integrity, fierce determination, a lion’s 
courage and immense imagination.

While it may not be for me to say, it is 
rare to meet someone who can truly 
be called great – Ron Southern was 
such a man. His range and depth of 
accomplishments were sterling, but it 
was his warmth, humility, decency and 
unwavering sense of duty and pride for 
his city, his province, and his country 
that distinguished him.

My meagre words can never do 
justice to our Founder, but in a note 
of condolence our family received, 
we were reminded of the tribute to 
Christopher Wren, the great British 
architect. When a friend of Wren’s 
heard someone lament that there 
were no monuments in recognition 
of Wren in London, the friend replied 
no monument was needed – one only 
needed to look around at the beautiful 
buildings that bear his signature.

While not in the same league as 
Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s 
Cathedral, the enterprise known as 
ATCO Group and the vitality of its 
people are the legacies that bear the 
signature of Ron Southern.

Everywhere you look across our 
organization you will find his 
architecture:

• The Balance Sheet – our strong 

foundation that is the bedrock from 
which ATCO grows;

• Dual Class Shares – the steel that 

ensures long-term sustainable value 
creation; and

• Method of Operating – the interior, 
filled with people of great heart, 
courage and determination, always 
striving for excellence, just like our 
Founder.

Our Company weathered many 
challenges and R.D. himself faced 
many adversities over the years, 
but he, and the people of ATCO – 
and they have been and are terrific 
people – persevered with honesty, 
determination, intelligence and 
common sense.

Today, as I remember the past, and 
face the future, I take great confidence 
in the lessons learned, the granite-
like strength of our Company and the 
resiliency of our people.

Our world and our economic 
environment are rapidly changing and 
growing in complexity and uncertainty.

2015 was a difficult year for our 
Company, just as it was for many 
others who felt the shockingly abrupt 
pull back in oil prices and diminishing 
growth opportunities.

It became increasingly apparent that 
in this changing world, we too had to 
change – preemptively and immediately 
if we were to be at the forefront of 
creating value-oriented solutions for 
our customers and future value for our 
share owners.

And change we did! We enacted 
sweeping change of unparalleled 
magnitude – reducing levels of 
bureaucracy built up over time and 
introducing a culture of flexibility, agility, 
imagination and innovation.

One factor that remains constant, 
but has received heightened focus 
and awareness is our unwavering 
commitment to our customers; 
knowing what customers are looking 
for and developing premier integrated 
solutions of the highest quality on-time 
and on-budget. This is the trademark of 
our Company.

3  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

We also made a fundamental shift 
in the way we do business as we 
restructured into three Global Business 
Units (GBUs) – Structures & Logistics, 
Electricity and Pipelines & Liquids – 
that combine all their lines of business 
in their respective industries into 
vertically integrated business units 
that are able to more efficiently and 
effectively respond to our customers’ 
needs.

Each GBU is approximately the 
same size that ATCO Group was a 
decade ago, prior to this past period 
of extraordinary expansion. The new 
structure gives us the nimbleness 
to make decisions in a more rapid 
and targeted, strategic manner. Each 
business unit is further strengthened 
by a mandate to pursue sectoral 
opportunities in a more autonomous 
way.

Our Managing Directors: Steve 
Lockwood, Structures & Logistics; 
Wayne Stensby, Electricity; and George 
Lidgett, Pipelines & Liquids; are tasked 
with growing their businesses through 
the development of new products 
and services and by pursuing new 
opportunities in existing markets and 
new geographies around the world.  
You will find letters regarding their 
respective strategies on pages 9, 16 
and 26.

Sett Policicchio, who most recently 
led the construction of the province’s 
longest ever transmission project – 

nearly 500 km in length, 500 kilovolt 
DC Eastern Alberta Transmission 
Line – now leads a newly formed 
group responsible for establishing 
a ‘Shared Services’ model that will 
deliver exceptional value to our Global 
Business Units for their non-core, but 
necessary needs such as global supply 
chain and procurement, security and 
fleet management, for example.

As the GBUs focus on their sales 
and markets, operational excellence, 
strategy, research and product 
development, the Shared Services 
team – now called our internal 
“Customer Service” group – is 
charged with developing a competitive 
advantage through streamlined, 
cost-effective services for ATCO’s 
operations. With a special team of 
experts intent on driving down costs 
without impacting industry-leading 
service or quality, our business units 
will concentrate solely on operations 
and growing their businesses.

I am very pleased and enthused about 
the early 2016 launch of our newest 
company, ATCOenergy, which is 
an example of our more innovative 
approach to traditional business that 
ATCO will now take. The new company 
is designed to be the premier electricity 
and natural gas retailer in Alberta’s 
competitive landscape on a virtual 
platform that is transferrable and 
scalable for other jurisdictions.

Total Return On $100 Investment

ATCO
$1,170

S&P/TSX
COMPOSITE
$435

We are a leaner, more targeted and 
revitalized organization today. One 
I believe, is an enterprise ready to 
compete with anyone, anywhere in the 
world, and we will continue to strive for 
excellence in all that we do.

Reducing staff was extremely difficult 
for me and for your Company. We 
remain steadfast in our belief that it is 
the people of ATCO Group who are our 
real competitive advantage and we will 
work hard to grow our businesses and 
create new opportunities for the next 
generation.

Under our new structure, we are 
adapting rapidly to a different world 
and we are even more capable of 
fending off the headwinds as they arise.  
We are exploring new opportunities and 
I foresee ATCO as a leader in renewable 
energy, in the future, as well as an 
enterprise that is well-equipped to 
provide housing, facilities management 
and catering around the world, and 
the company that customers globally 
seek to build integrated infrastructure 
solutions – Always there, anywhere, 
anytime.

Our history is not just one of tackling 
adversity but of emerging stronger with 
a more prosperous and dynamic future 
ahead. As evidenced by our 20-year 
total share owner return (left), your 
Company continues to outperform the 
S&P/TSX Composite by a significant 
margin despite the downward pressure 
of the markets this past year.

As our Founder used to say “To ATCO, 
tomorrow means adventure, meeting 
new challenges, visiting new lands, 
exploring new dimensions in living, 
finding new opportunities, creating 
as yet unknown designs and thinking 
of unlimited ideas. The world is our 
thinking cap.”

I am inspired by the bold course we 
have set, the support of our Directors 
and the terrific people of our Company.  
I look forward to an exciting 2016.

Sincerely yours,

N.C. Southern

95

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01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

10

11

12

13

14

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LETTER TO SHARE OWNERS  4

$2,000

$1,500

$1,000

$500

0

ATCOenergy

atco chair, President & ceo,  
nancy Southern, announces the launch 
of atcoenergy at a press conference 
held in edmonton, alberta.

On February 3, 2016 ATCO launched 
its newest venture – ATCOenergy, a 
new electricity and natural gas retail 
company that promises Albertans 
outstanding service and lower costs 
for their homes and businesses. With 
the launch, ATCO has built on its near 
100-year history in the province and 
invested once again, creating new jobs 
and lowering electricity and natural gas 
costs when Albertans need it most.

The company’s business model was 
developed for Albertans, by Albertans. 
After completing nearly two years of 
customer research across the province, 
the company learned what customers 
were looking for in an energy retailer, 
determined where existing service 
providers were falling short, and 
identified opportunities for ATCOenergy 
to provide the level of service 
customers expected.

Customer input led to the creation of a 
positive energy company that rewards 
its customers for loyalty, offers low 
rates, transparent, no strings attached 
plans and a positive, hassle-free 
experience. 

With a commitment to delivering the 
outstanding service that customers 
have come to expect from an 
ATCO company, ATCOenergy offers 
innovative and flexible plans spanning 
1, 3, or 5 years, a choice of variable or 
guaranteed prices for electricity and/
or natural gas service and the ability to 
purchase green energy from renewable 
sources. Customers also benefit from 
one of the lowest administration fees 
in the market, saving 50 per cent 
off monthly administration fees by 
combining their electricity and natural 
gas in an Energy Value Bundle.

Large business customers can also 
leverage ATCO’s in-depth knowledge 
of the electricity and gas markets in 

Alberta through ATCOenergy’s team of 
in-house energy consultants. This team 
of experts analyzes customer energy 
use and develops customized plans 
that meet customer needs and result in 
real savings.

Since its launch, Albertans have 
embraced ATCOenergy, proving that 
the time was right and customers were 
ready to welcome a new electricity and 
natural gas retailer to the province.

Albertans can sign-up for some positive 
energy at ATCOenergy.com or by 
calling 1-844-OUR-ATCO (687-2826).

ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen: 
Connecting With Customers 
for 86 Years

ATCO’s restructuring efforts in 2015 
brought together ATCOenergy and 
ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen (BFK), a 
company that has connected with 
customers across Alberta for 86 
years.

speaking opportunities and new 
programs with partners at the 
University of Alberta, Alberta 
School Boards, YMCA, Alberta 
Food Banks and Alberta Health 
Services.

As a well-established brand in 
Alberta, ATCO BFK will help 
introduce Albertans to ATCOenergy.  

ATCO BFK has a long history of 
supporting and engaging with 
communities and organizations 
throughout the province – an 
approach that aligns with 
ATCOenergy’s promise of spreading 
positive energy.

In 2015, ATCO BFK once again 
increased overall community 
engagement reaching customers 
of all ages through events, classes, 

Through these educational 
programs and a combination 
of diverse platforms, including 
media appearances and digital 
communications, ATCO BFK 
reached more than 458,000 
customers primarily in Alberta.

ATCO BFK continues to be a 
cherished and trusted brand 
customers look to for reliable 
information, including recipes, food 
safety, stain removal, and other 
household concerns.

Customer benefits include:

•  Up to $100 in sign-up incentives 

(credited to your first bill);

•  Up to $50 in anniversary credits 

(credited to your bill every year on 
the anniversary of your agreement);

•  Green electricity options;

•  Convenient payment options 

(including credit card payment);

•  A simple sign-up process by phone 

or online (including live-chat);

•  The lowest administration 

fees around;

•  Flexible contract options;

•  No penalty cancellation; and

• Outstanding customer service.

in 2015, atco blue Flame Kitchen saw more than 9,700 customers of all 
ages participate in new educational programs and various cooking classes.

5  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

ATCOenergy  6

Competing Globally Through 
Innovative Solutions

Siegfried W. Kiefer
President & Chief Operating Officer,  
Canadian Utilities Limited

The World and the World of Business 
are changing at an ever-increasing 
pace. We see customers demanding 
more innovation not only in products 
and services, but also in delivery 
channels and the commercial terms 
that we offer. Globally, there continues 
to be growing demand to address 
environmental issues and climate 
change. As well, global competition 
is intensifying, requiring us to be even 
more efficient and effective in order 
to be the best in the world, no matter 
where we operate.

It is within the context of these 
global trends, complicated by a very 
challenging time for resources and 
resource-based economies, that ATCO 
has undertaken a reorganization of its 
principal operating subsidiaries into 
globally focused, vertically integrated 
business units.

The reorganization of our subsidiaries 
and their superior capabilities into three 
integrated Global Business Units opens 
up opportunities to take our expertise 
to maturing and emerging markets 
alike.

INNOVATION 
A focus of our Global Business Units 
will be to use our ingenuity and 
innovation to bring comprehensive 
solutions to our existing and new 
customers. We are already hard at work 
in this area with planning for several 
projects far advanced.

An example is distributed generation – 
an innovative, high-potential business 
model that provides customers with 
temporary or long-term power solutions 
of various sizes – anytime, anywhere. 
These modular power generation 
facilities can provide power to 

customers connected to the electricity 
grid or in complete isolation.

Temporary solutions can bridge the 
gap between grid connection and 
permanent generation, for emergency 
or supplementary onsite power, or to 
offset electricity shortages.

In addition, ATCO is pursuing a number 
of initiatives that are driving down 
costs and driving up environmental 
performance for customers. 

The City of Fremantle in Western 
Australia made the decision to reduce 
its carbon footprint, as well as its 
operating costs, through the use of 
technologies, including natural gas 
cogeneration with ATCO. Installation 
of the cogeneration unit produces 
electricity to run the leisure centre 
and the heat generated during the 
production of electricity is captured 
and used to heat the swimming pools, 
thereby lowering the carbon footprint of 
the centre and its energy running costs.

ENVIRONMENTAL 
OPPORTUNITIES 
In Alberta, the province has announced 
that all coal-fired electricity generation 
will be shut down by 2030, with two-
thirds of that generation being replaced 
by renewable energy. With more than 
6,250 MW of the installed generating 
capacity in Alberta being coal-fired, 
the road ahead is challenging as a 
tremendous amount of power will have 
to be replaced in addition to dealing 
with the growth in demand.

The greening of the energy sector also 
requires significant additions and major 
changes to the transmission grid to 
accommodate the intermittent nature 
of renewables. When the sun doesn’t 

on developing deep understanding, 
respect, trust, and mutual long-term 
benefits, we will achieve tremendous 
long-term partnering relationships in 
all parts of the world where we wish 
to operate.

The change that is underway 
throughout the developed and 
developing world presents ATCO with 
tremendous opportunity.

By combining innovative solutions 
to meet our customers’ needs, 
with globally competitive costs, 
strong community and Indigenous 
partnerships, and working closely with 
governments to create sound policy 
frameworks, ATCO will be successful 
in being a growing part of the global 
delivery of affordable, reliable, and 
sustainable energy solutions for 
generations to come.

Siegfried Kiefer 

shine and the wind doesn’t blow no 
power is available to flow through the 
wires and alternate sources must be 
available to maintain the reliability of 
the electrical grid.

If Alberta is to achieve its targets of 
30 per cent renewable electricity by 
2030, hydro electricity must be a part 
of the solution. Hydro is the only form 
of renewable generation with dispatch 
control. This means that it can cost 
effectively store energy when wind and 
solar are available, and then step into 
service when the sun is not shining, 
or the wind is not blowing. In addition, 
hydro facilities can play an integral 
role in water management and flood 
control. Water is a critical resource for 
agriculture, industrial processes and 
sustaining nature. We must manage 
this resource more effectively than we 
do today.

Globally, we are seeking markets 
that would benefit from our 
integrated capabilities to advance 
their environmental improvements. 
An example of how we are already 
implementing this strategy is occurring 
in Mexico where we are building a 
pipeline and working on a cogeneration 
power plant as the country pursues 
increased use of a cleaner and more 
affordable fuel source.

As countries around the world tackle 
climate change by replacing thermal 
generation with renewables, we see a 
wealth of opportunity.

GLOBAL COMPETITION 
To succeed in the future we must be 
the best; we must be lean to manage 
costs; we must be innovative; and 
we must be nimble and even more 
responsive – acting more quickly than 
we do today.

Around the world, different competitive 
models are being explored in many 
jurisdictions – government-subsidized 
projects, competitive bid initiatives, 
and private/public partnerships to 
name a few. Regardless of the model, 
ATCO will be active and progressive in 
providing solutions both globally and in 
our home province of Alberta.

For example, in December 2014, 
following an intense international 
competition involving the world’s 
foremost companies, we were 
successful in winning the first 
competitively bid transmission 
infrastructure project in Alberta – 
an approximately 500 km, 500 kV 
transmission line and associated facilities 
valued at $1.43 billion, running from west 
of Edmonton to Fort McMurray.

We submitted a bid that provided the 
best possible infrastructure solution 
at the lowest possible cost – a 
commitment we make every day to the 
more than one million electricity and 
natural gas customers we serve. The 
win crystalized the realization that we 
can successfully compete against the 
world’s best. 

A critical factor in our success will be 
our continued efforts at establishing 
and maintaining our commitment to 
being a valued corporate citizen in the 
communities in which we operate, and 
in our Indigenous relations. We believe 
that by focusing our organization 

7  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

COMPETING GLOBALLY THROUGH INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS  8

SteVe LocKWood
President & Chief Operating Officer 
ATCO Structures & Logistics Ltd.

STRUCTURES 
& LOGISTICS

GLOBAL BUSINESS UNIT  

In 2015, the global economy continued its downward slide, 
which resulted in a decrease in profitability for ATCO’s Structures 
& Logistics Global Business Unit. However, because of our 
diversification in business lines and geography, the impact of this 
downturn on our business was somewhat mitigated.

Also in 2015, as part of ATCO’s long-term strategy of divesting 
non-core assets and redeploying capital to its core businesses, 
ATCO Emissions Management was sold to TriWest Capital 
Partners.

As we move into 2016, it will be essential for us to control our 
costs, enhance our global sales efforts, enter new markets and 
add new products and services to our suite of offerings. We will 
use this downturn in the global commodity markets to refocus our 
business and position ourselves for the future.

A key component to this transformation will be refocusing our 
organization in many areas, including innovation in our products, 
services, processes and systems. Through innovation and a 
coordinated and aggressive approach to sales and cost controls, 
we will position ourselves to further diversify and grow our 
business.

As we reshape our business, it is our expectation that we will gain 
a much deeper insight into our global markets and our customers’ 
needs and expectations. We will use this knowledge to diversify 
our business outside the energy sector and to improve our 
offerings to our customers. At the same time, ATCO Structures & 
Logistics will continue to provide the solutions and services our 
customers have come to expect over many years.

As the world continues to navigate through this difficult economic 
journey, ATCO will continue to work on creating value for current 
and prospective customers worldwide.

Structures 
& Logistics 
ATCO’s Structures & Logistics 
Global Business Unit includes 
ATCO Structures & Logistics, ATCO 
Frontec and ATCO Sustainable 
Communities. Together, this business 
unit offers modular structures, lodging 
and support services, and facility 
operations and maintenance solutions 
worldwide. This includes a full range 
of pre-fabricated, culturally sensitive 
building solutions for Indigenous and 
other remote communities.

With manufacturing facilities in North 
America and Australia, a global 
supply chain, and operations on three 
continents, the Structures & Logistics 
Global Business Unit has the expertise 
to rapidly deliver a turnkey solution 
anywhere it is needed.

GROWTH 
To meet increased expectations for 
value and service, ATCO’s Structures 
& Logistics Global Business Unit 
continues to pursue strategies aimed at 
delivering customer-focused, value-
driven products and services. This 
included new pricing strategies across 

most product lines and renegotiated 
agreements and arrangements with 
many suppliers.

To support future growth, ATCO 
Structures & Logistics expanded 
into new and existing geographical 
markets. In Canada, the company 
grew its business in the East with the 
acquisition of Morris Modular Space 
in Sudbury, Ontario, increasing the 
company’s rental fleet by 10 per cent 
in Eastern Canada. In Mexico, ATCO 
Structures & Logistics established a 
sales presence as part of ATCO’s entry 
into that market, and is identifying 
opportunities for future business.

INNOVATION 
In 2015, ATCO Structures & Logistics 
successfully developed a number of 
innovative new products in Australia, 
where there has been a conscious 
drive for innovative modular product 
development. 

A range of blast resistant buildings 
were designed and constructed for 
petrochemical projects. These buildings 
were designed to withstand blast 
overpressure ranges from 6.2 kPa to 
50 kPa.

The company was also contracted 
to provide initial design development 
and construction of various highly 
customized buildings for a new 
market segment — detention and 
processing facilities required by the 
Australian Government at Manus 
Island and Nauru. Structures included 
accommodation, processing facilities, 
kitchen and laundry buildings and a 
fully operational hospital, including 
operating and dental theatres.

Modular Structures 
The modular structures business line 
includes the design, manufacturing 
and installation of workforce housing 
facilities. In addition to large-scale 
workforce housing complexes, ATCO 
also provides modular fleet hire and 
sales.

The collapse of oil and commodity 
prices in 2015 led to a drastic, global 
reduction in exploration and mining 
activity which created a challenging 
year for ATCO’s modular construction 
business.

Despite these market conditions, ATCO 
won several contracts that showcase 
the company’s ability to cost-effectively 

atco was awarded a further contract to design, manufacture and install an additional 435 modular units with bechtel 
on the chevron-operated Wheatstone Project in Western australia. the units were manufactured at atco’s Kwinana 
Manufacturing facility (above).

Shell’s carmon creek bluesky Lodge was 
completed in 2015 ahead of schedule and 
without a lost-time incident from the more 
than 500,000 hours of work.

9  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

Steve Lockwood

STRUCTURES & LOGISTICS  10

deliver large workforce housing projects 
and to provide customers with flexible 
financing options.

Site c clean energy Project 
The biggest contract of 2015 was the 
award of the BC Hydro Site C Clean 
Energy Project, in the Peace River 
region of British Columbia. The eight-
year contract, valued at approximately 
$470 million, is for the design, 
manufacture, installation and operation 
of a 1,600-person workforce housing 
facility.

The lodge showcases ATCO’s 
capabilities in modular construction, 
and features an airy, contemporary, 
open-concept central lobby as the 
centrepiece. The facility features a 
range of modern amenities designed 
to bring all the comforts of home to the 
rural location, and to reduce the impact 
on the surrounding community.

The Site C Lodge features a multi-faith 
centre, a 100-person movie theatre, 
a licensed lounge, a gymnasium 
with a running track and a weight 

training area. To further enhance the 
experience for lodge residents, services 
such as physiotherapy, massage and 
hairdressing will also be provided.

racquetball and squash courts, a 
running track, separate weight training 
areas, a 200-person, open-plan 
office complex and a 1,500-person 
wastewater treatment plant.

The lodge, its operation and related 
services is a great example of how the 
integration of two formerly separate 
ATCO businesses - ATCO Structures 
and ATCO Frontec - have been 
combined to bring better value and 
solutions to customers.

Shell carmon creek Project 
In the second quarter of 2015, ATCO 
completed the manufacturing and 
installation phase of the 1,200-person 
workforce housing facility – the Blue 
Sky Lodge – at the Shell Carmon Creek 
oil sands project.

The facility includes 94 modular units in 
combination with a panelized system, 
creating a lobby with an open, hotel-
like feel. The dormitories feature single 
occupancy bedrooms with ensuite 
bathrooms. The lodge also features 
relaxation and recreation rooms, a 
stand-alone gymnasium including 

Construction of the Blue Sky Lodge 
also featured an important safety 
milestone. The lodge was completed 
with a remarkable 500,000 hours of 
work, without a lost-time incident.

ATCO’s joint-venture partnership with 
the Woodland Cree First Nation for the 
Shell Carmon Creek facility supports 
local Woodland Cree businesses 
and employment of local First Nation 
members. This includes work related 
to camp management, catering, 
housekeeping, janitorial services 
and more. While the Carmon Creek 
Project was suspended by Shell, ATCO 
continues to operate the lodge in a 
reduced capacity for the company, 
whose staff and contractors from other 
projects continue to work in the area.

Lng Modular Structures Project 
In the fourth quarter of 2015, ATCO 
was awarded a contract to design, 
construct, transport, install and 
rent 591 modular units at a major 
liquefied natural gas (LNG) project 
near Lake Charles, Louisiana. The 
units will be used to provide sleeping 
accommodation for 2,300 persons, 
kitchen and dining facilities, and a 
recreation centre.

Under the terms of the contract, the 
new workforce housing units will be 
leased for a 29-month period which 
commenced in January 2016 with the 
delivery of 104 modular units after 
completing Phase I of the project. At 
the end of the lease term, the units will 
be returned to the company’s fleet, 
thereby expanding its footprint in the 
U.S. market.

AUSTRALIA 
Wheatstone Project 
In 2015, ATCO was awarded additional 
scope to design, manufacture and 
install an additional 435 modular 
units under its current agreement with 
Bechtel on the Chevron-operated 
Wheatstone Project in Western 

Australia. The total value of the work is 
estimated to be AUD$384 million and 
includes workforce accommodation, 
kitchen facilities, lunch rooms, offices 
and site cribs.

ATCO continues to grow its business 
supporting LNG projects in Australia, 
with this being the fourth major 
contract the company has been 
awarded.

State government Projects 
ATCO was successful in being 
selected as a supplier for two 
government contracts: New South 
Wales Correctional Services, supplying 
building and installation work for 
prison facilities within the state; and 
Victoria Education, where ATCO has 
been selected to provide schools and 
other construction and refurbishment 
activities for all public schools within 
Victoria. 

These opportunities position ATCO 
as a direct contractor to two state 
governments within Australia.

Lodging and 
Support Services 
As part of its turnkey accommodation 
offering, ATCO Structures & Logistics 
provides customized lodge operation 
services in support of “closed” or 
customer-owned lodges. The range of 
services can include:

• Food services;

•  Housekeeping and janitorial services;

•  Guest intake (front desk and 

reception);

• Recreation programs;

•  Retail (convenience stores, vending, 

bars, coffee shops and ATMs);

• Security and pass control;

•  Administrative support and housing 

staff;

• Building and utility maintenance; and

• Roads and ground maintenance.

ATCO continued to grow its lodge 
operations business with a contract 
win in March through Torngait Services 
Inc., a partnership between ATCO and 
the Nunatsiavut Group of Companies. 

atco Structures & Logistics is building a temporary community in the form of a 1,600-person workforce housing facility 
for the construction of bc Hydro’s Site c clean energy Project.

From food and janitorial services, to building and utility maintenance, atco offers a full suite of complementary lodging 
and support services for atco and customer-owned lodges around the world. 

11  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

STRUCTURES & LOGISTICS  12

The contract was awarded by Valard 
Construction LP for the operation of 
five workforce accommodation lodges 
in Newfoundland and Labrador.

New business was also generated 
with a contract award from Husky in 
November to operate and maintain 
its Sunrise Lodge and provide food 
services to guests staying at the 1,500-
room lodge.

In 2015, ATCO continued to operate 
lodges for CNRL, K + S Potash, Shell, 
TransCanada Pipelines and BHP 
Billiton, and continued to co-own 
and operate Barge Landing Lodge 
and Creeburn Lake Lodge with the 
Fort McKay First Nation, north of Fort 
McMurray.

Logistics and 
Facility operations 
and Maintenance 
Services 
The core business of ATCO Frontec is 
the provision of logistics and facility 
operations and maintenance (O&M) 
services in Canada and internationally 
to both the private and public sectors.

Pan American Games
Last summer when the eyes of the 
world turned to southern Ontario 
for the 2015 Pan American and 
Parapan American Games, ATCO 
was front and centre, providing 
200 modular units for a range of 
operations at sports venues during 
the Games.

ATCO’s mobile, multi-purpose 
buildings were delivered to 35 
event sites and used in a variety of 
ways including ticketing booths, 
broadcast facilities, offices, medical 
centres, lavatories, showers, as well 
as lounges for judges and athletes.

atco Structures & Logistics was awarded a 10-year contract renewal from the 
government of nunavut to continue operating the 30 million litre fuel storage 
facility in resolute bay.

In 2015, ATCO was awarded a 10-year 
contract renewal from the Government 
of Nunavut to continue operating the 
30 million litre fuel storage facility in 
Resolute Bay. The new contract begins 
November 2016.

ATCO also continues to operate 
Resolute Bay’s South Camp Inn, 
Airport Hotel and a water treatment 
plant, and maintains the Resolute Bay 
Observatory in the world’s second-
most northern community.

In the Arctic, ARCTEC, a partnership 
between ATCO Structures & Logistics 
and ASRC Federal Primus, continues 
to provide operations and maintenance 
services to the Alaska Radar System, 
for the United States Department of 
the Air Force. The 10-year ARCTEC 
agreement was renegotiated in 2015, 
and services are currently being 
provided under a bridge agreement 
with the new contract coming into 
effect October 2016. This contract 
continues ATCO’s 19-year partnership 
to maintain the radar sites which are 
accessible only by air or seasonal 
barge.

Sustainable 
communities 
Part of the Structures & Logistics 
Global Business Unit, ATCO 
Sustainable Communities provides a 
full range of pre-fabricated, culturally 
sensitive building solutions for 
Indigenous and remote communities.

The company’s capabilities have 
evolved to provide Indigenous 
customers with support related to 
commercial development of Urban 
Reserve Lands, land acquisition and 
commercial leasing.

COMMITTED TO CUSTOMERS 
ATCO Sustainable Communities’ 
holistic engagement process extends 
to identifying and welcoming 
community-owned businesses and 
community members to participate 
throughout the life cycle of the 
project. As a result, ATCO is better 
able to understand their specific 
cultural and physical requirements.

This approach strengthens ATCO’s 
partnership with the community, 
while ensuring the project’s overall 
success. Engagement continues after 
project completion with training and 
education programs delivered by 
ATCO. As a result, qualified resources 
exist in the community to manage 
and maintain the new infrastructure 
over the long-term.

GROWTH 
2015 was an important year as the 
company continues to diversify 
and grow the services offered to 
Indigenous communities. An area 
of focus has been partnering with 
Indigenous communities in the 
development of traditional or in some 
cases, newly acquired Urban Reserve 
Lands.

The successful commercial land 
development of these properties 
provides an unparalleled opportunity 
for Indigenous communities to 

Helping Fuel Development for 
the Salt River First Nation

On November 2, 2015, the Salt 
River First Nation officially cut 
the ribbon on its wholly-owned 
and operated Petro-Canada gas 
station and convenience store in 
Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. 
Canadian Utilities Limited President 
& Chief Operating Officer, Siegfried 
Kiefer, was on-hand joining 
dignitaries from the Salt River First 
Nation.

The 3,100 sq. ft. modular facility 
includes a well-appointed gas 
station, plus a fully stocked 
convenience store, and office space 

designed for commercial tenants. 
The project was designed and built 
by ATCO Sustainable Communities 
and opened just three months 
after the design was approved. 
This showcased the speed with 
which the company can provide 
infrastructure for Indigenous 
communities.

Now fully operational, the facility 
provides significant economic 
development, training and 
employment opportunities for the 
Salt River First Nation.

13  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

STRUCTURES & LOGISTICS  14

generate revenue that can be used 
to sustain programming and develop 
community infrastructure.

To assist partners in the timely 
development of these lands, 
ATCO has created a Commercial 
Development Group designed 
to support communities through 
every stage of the project from 
land acquisition through to the 
development, construction and 
property management of facilities.

Jeremias Sillitt community centre 
In Nain, Labrador, ATCO constructed 
the Jeremias Sillitt Community 
Centre. The 15,000 sq. ft. facility 
features durable, modular 
construction which provided the 
perfect, cost-effective solution for the 
remote community – accessible only 
by boat or plane.

The design accommodates a variety 
of community functions and includes 
spaces for Elders to gather, a library, 
kitchen, gymnasium and fitness 
facility. The facility was engineered to 
withstand a heavy snow load for at 
least six months of the year.

Salt river First nation gas Station 
In October, ATCO completed a gas 
station and convenience store for the 
Salt River First Nation (see sidebar 

pg. 14). The 3,100 sq. ft. facility is the 
second commercial project built by 
ATCO in Fort Smith, NWT. In 2012, 
ATCO designed and built the Wood 
Buffalo Inn – a modular extended 
stay motel.

attawapiskat Firehall 
Several other projects showcasing 
ATCO’s versatility and capabilities 
were completed in 2015, including 
construction of a fire hall for the 
Attawapiskat First Nation.

The fire hall features innovative 
integration of a modular 
administrative building with a pre-
engineered steel structure for the 
vehicle bays. Modular construction 
was an excellent solution for the 
community since its remote location 
features a short building season with 
difficult access on seasonal winter 
roads and by barge.

Piikani nation Multiplex 
Sports centre 
The largest project in ATCO 
Sustainable Communites’ history 
— the Piikani Nation’s 36,000 
sq. ft. Multiplex Sports Centre in 
Brocket, Alberta — was initiated in 
2015. The new facility will include 
an ice rink, dressing rooms and 
concession, along with community 
meeting spaces and offices. The 

MuLtiPLex SPortS centre: PiiKani nation

centre is being constructed using an 
innovative approach that combines 
ATCO modular units for the dressing 
rooms and offices, inside an 
engineered membrane arena.

blood tribe youth Wellness centre 
In Standoff, Alberta, construction of 
the uniquely designed 4,343 sq. ft. 
Blood Tribe Youth Wellness Centre is 
also underway. The centre will feature 
eight private bedrooms with ensuites, 
a common area and dining room, 
as well as offices, a boardroom, 
reception and lobby, washrooms and 
a ceremony room.

The modular units used in 
construction are being manufactured 
at the Blood Tribe’s own housing 
manufacturing facility.

ATCO worked closely with Blood 
Tribe Housing in 2014, to re-open 
the manufacturing facility, and to 
provide community members with 
on-the-job training. The results of 
this investment were realized for 
both partners when ATCO built 24 
townhomes using the Blood Tribe 
manufacturing facility, and employing 
community members for the project.

When complete, the Piikani nation’s state-of-the-art 36,000 sq. ft. multiplex sports centre will be the largest project in 
atco Sustainable communities’ history.

15  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

in 2015, atco electric completed the 
largest project in the company’s history. 
the 485 km, 500 kilovolt eastern alberta 
transmission Line will play a key role in 
bringing renewable energy to albertans 
across the province.

Wayne StenSby
Managing Director, 
Electricity

ELECTRICITY

GLOBAL BUSINESS UNIT  

In 2015, as an element of ATCO’s transformational change, the Electricity 
Global Business Unit brought together ATCO Electric, ATCO Power and 
ATCO Power Australia, delivering fully integrated solutions in electricity 
generation, transmission and distribution.

The merits of integration and a singular focus on delivering value to 
our customers are already becoming evident. Our House Mountain 
Gas Conservation Facilities and North Montney Power Supply 
projects (see pg. 21) are making energy easier for customers through 
our distributed generation solutions combined with our transmission and 
distribution expertise.

The successful completion of the Eastern Alberta Transmission Line 
and commencement of the Fort McMurray West 500 kV Transmission 
Project demonstrate our capacity to deliver complex, large-scale projects 
(see pg. 17).

Customers, governments and society are expecting more from electricity, 
and the role of electricity providers is changing rapidly - we see this as 
our opportunity. The drive for sustainable energy is global, and providing 
environmentally friendly solutions coupled with ongoing product and 
service innovations is key to our growth.

As outlined in the Government of Alberta’s Climate Leadership Plan, coal-
fired power generation will be phased out of Alberta by 2030. We embrace 
this step forward and share the province’s vision to reduce emissions and 
improve environmental performance, while remaining mindful of the need 
to properly balance system reliability, protect jobs, and mitigate costs for 
consumers. 

ATCO is working closely with government and industry to provide solutions 
that will evolve Alberta’s fuel mix and introduce more renewable sources 
of generation, including not only wind but also solar, and perhaps most 
importantly, hydro.

Opportunities for renewables exist in our home province but, also in 
other markets worldwide including Australia where the country has the 
highest usage of grid-connected rooftop photovoltaic solar systems, and 
in Canada’s North where our utility companies are pursuing renewable 
replacements for existing diesel generation.

In 2016, our business will renew our focus on innovation, expanding 
our sales efforts into new markets and geographies, and increasing our 
customer engagement to better understand their needs and expectations.

ATCO’s Electricity Global Business Unit is well-positioned to provide 
customers with the cost-effective energy solutions they need, while 
keeping a steadfast commitment to safety, reliability, customer service 
and innovation. 

Wayne Stensby

ELECTRICITY  16

right-of-Way Project Manager Scott 
Merrifield (right) consults with a landowner 
near genesee, alberta.

electricity 
transmission 
and distribution 
As part of the Electricity Global 
Business Unit, ATCO Electric builds, 
owns, and operates electrical 
transmission and distribution 
facilities, delivering safe, reliable 
electricity to more than 227,000 farm, 
business and residential customers in 
245 communities in east-central and 
northern Alberta. The company also 
supplies electricity to large industrial 
and oilfield customers, supporting 
the development of Alberta’s energy-
rich industrial sector.

ATCO’s electrical system includes 
approximately 11,000 km of 
transmission lines and 69,000 km 
of distribution lines. The company 
plans, develops, operates and 
maintains transmission infrastructure 
that transports electricity from 
generating stations to substations, 
as well as distribution facilities that 
deliver power from substations, 
directly to customers’ homes 
and businesses. It also maintains 
approximately 4,000 km of 
distribution lines on behalf of 
farmer-owned Rural Electrification 
Associations.

In addition to its role as a regulated 
utility, ATCO Electric, through the 
Electricity Global Business Unit, 
pursues non-regulated projects, 
delivering top-quality, cost-effective 
electrical infrastructure for industry. 

In 2015, ATCO Electric implemented 
strategies to deal with reduced 
demand for capital project work 
due to the economic impacts of 
falling oil prices. The company found 
efficiencies by restructuring to better 
foster growth, innovation and good 
customer service, and adapt to 
changing economic circumstances.

PROJECT UPDATES 
eastern alberta transmission Line 
In 2015, ATCO Electric completed 
and placed into service the 
$1.8 billion Eastern Alberta 
Transmission Line (EATL) – the largest 
project in its history. Stretching 
from north of Edmonton to south 
of Brooks, EATL is one of the first 
High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) 
lines in Alberta, reinforcing Alberta’s 
electrical grid and providing capacity 
to handle new sources of renewable 
power generation in the province.

Fort McMurray West 500 kV 
transmission Project 
Work continues on the Fort McMurray 
West 500 kV Transmission Project, 
won by ATCO’s Alberta PowerLine 
company through the government’s 
competitive transmission bid 
process in 2014. Consultation 
with landowners, communities 
and Indigenous peoples occurred 
throughout 2015. Alberta PowerLine 
submitted its facilities application 
to the Alberta Utilities Commission 
(AUC) in December, requesting 
approval to construct and operate 
the project. The company anticipates 
the AUC will render its decision on 
proposed routes by late 2016/early 
2017.

GROWTH 
In 2015, ATCO Electric formed its 
new customer-focused sales group 
charged with finding projects in new 
markets, both within Canada and 
beyond. 

INNOVATION 
In 2015, ATCO Electric’s Transmission 
Division successfully created and 
implemented an ISO 14001 compliant 
Environmental Management System 
(EMS). With this system, the company 
ensures environmental impacts are 
considered and evaluated when 
making business decisions.

O V ATI

O

N

N

N
I

I

N

 A C T I O

N

One Small Step for Faster, Safer 
Power Line Maintenance

Traditionally, Power Line Technicians 
have maintained transmission lines by 
travelling on the ground from tower to 
tower, climbing to the top to perform 
their work, then climbing back down 
to drive to the next tower. While this 
method works, ATCO Electric saw 
room for improvement and adapted an 
existing helicopter-based maintenance 
method.

After several months of testing 
and training, the Line Maintenance 
department of ATCO Electric’s 
Transmission Division implemented the 
new A-Step maintenance method.

The A-Step method involves a small set 
of stairs mounted to a helicopter. Power 
Line Technicians move from tower to 
tower via helicopter, using the A-Step to 
quickly and safely transfer themselves 
and their tools from a hovering 
helicopter to the top of each tower.

The new method provides a number of 
advantages: 

•  Improved safety for technicians – 
reduces the time technicians are 
exposed to falls by 50 per cent, and 
technicians are connected to fall arrest 
gear at all times;

•  Reduced environmental footprint – 
less travel on power line rights-of 
-way;

•  More efficient – maintenance tasks 

are completed much more quickly and 
efficiently; and

•  Cost-savings – eliminates the need to 

pay for temporary right-of-way access, 
crossing agreements for pipelines and 
other utility infrastructure.

The A-Step is a significant step forward 
for power line maintenance and just 
one example of how the Electricity 
Global Business Unit will use innovative 
new construction and maintenance 
techniques to improve safety, increase 
performance, reduce environmental 
impacts and lower costs.

17  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

ELECTRICITY 18

SAFETY 
In 2015, ATCO Power successfully 
completed facility maintenance at 
three of its major power generation 
facilities. The turnarounds were 
completed with zero recorded 
incidents despite the increased risk 
associated with higher numbers 
of staff onsite. The success of the 
turnaround season is a testament 
to ATCO’s commitment to premier 
health and safety performance.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT 
ASHCOR Technologies, a division of 
ATCO Power, has marketed fly ash, 
a non-combustible byproduct of the 
coal-fired generation process, to 
industrial customers for more than 
18 years. Fly ash is a supplementary 
cementing material and a superior 

replacement for more GHG-intensive 
ready-mix cement products on the 
market.

In 2015, ASHCOR engaged in 
several research and development 
(R&D) initiatives designed to benefit 
its customers and expand the use 
of fly ash beyond the oil and gas 
and ready-mix concrete industries. 
The team’s primary R&D focus 
was soil stabilization, completing 
several successful soil test sections 
in feedlots and under new roads 
throughout Alberta. The team 
also worked in collaboration with 
laboratory partners to study the 
extraction of rare earth metals from 
fly ash for manufacturing.

distributed 
generation 
Distributed generation is an 
innovative business model that 
provides customers with temporary 
or long-term power solutions of 
various sizes – anytime, anywhere. 
ATCO Power develops, installs 
and operates these modular 
power generation facilities which 
can provide power to customers 
connected to the electricity grid or in 
complete isolation.

Temporary solutions can be 
used to bridge the gap between 
grid connection and permanent 
generation, for emergency or 
supplementary onsite power, or 
to offset electricity shortages. 

COMMITTED TO CUSTOMERS 
In an effort to help customers better 
understand their electricity bills, 
ATCO Electric released a series of 
educational videos that explain the 
various components of a bill and 
reinforce the value of the company’s 
services. The illustrated videos use 
a simple and engaging storytelling 
approach that was well-received 
among customers and earned the 
company a communications award 
from the International Association of 
Business Communicators.

During the summer of 2015, 
ATCO Electric demonstrated its 
commitment to customers when it 
responded to wildfires in northeast 
and northwest Alberta, including a 
10,000 hectare fire on the Cold Lake 
Air Weapons Range. Local teams 
worked with emergency responders 
and were among the first to access 
the site of that fire.

Within four days, ATCO Electric 
crews had repaired and re-energized 
16 fire-damaged, 25 kV power lines – 
an extremely quick and safe response 
in the wake of considerable damage.

In a transaction demonstrating the 
trust ATCO Electric has established 

with the communities it serves, 
the company purchased the 
electric distribution assets of two 
Rural Electrification Associations 
– Stry, located 150 km northeast 
of Edmonton, and Warwick, 
approximately 100 km east of the 
Alberta capital. In total, ATCO Electric 
added approximately 630 new 
customers.

Power generation 
ATCO Power, part of the Electricity 
Global Business Unit, leverages 
decades of experience and industry-
leading expertise developing, 
building and operating independent 
power generation facilities to provide 
customers with cost-effective power 
solutions.

ATCO Power has an ownership 
position in 13 power generation 
plants in Alberta, British Columbia, 
Saskatchewan and Ontario, with a 
combined capacity of approximately 
3,591 megawatts (MW) and a total 
ownership interest in 2,286 MW. The 
company has expertise in developing, 
constructing and operating gas-fired, 
cogeneration, combined-cycle, hydro 
and coal-fired generating stations.

Keeping the Lights on 
at the Grande Prairie 
Regional Hospital

In 2015, ATCO Electric designed 
and installed an automatic transfer 
system in the new Grande Prairie 
Regional Hospital to ensure power 
to the hospital is maintained 
even during a severe or extended 
outage. In the event of an outage, 
the newly installed system ensures 
power is automatically transferred 
from one feeder to the other via the 
automated switching devices.

To further protect and maintain the 
reliability of the hospital’s power 
supply, ATCO Electric took the 
installation one step further. Most 
commercially available automatic 
transfer systems encase all of 
the switches in a single switching 
cubicle. If that cubicle is badly 
damaged, the power goes out. To 
mitigate this risk, ATCO Electric 
designed a two-cubicle system 
to keep the power to the hospital 
flowing even if one cubicle is 
damaged. 

When the Grande Prairie Regional 
Hospital opens in 2019, reliability 
will be greatly improved with the 
adoption of this technology.

a frame from atco electric’s award-winning video educating customers on 
their electricity bills.

atco Power’s distributed generation team successfully delivered a 5 MW temporary power generation solution that reduces 
flare gas for apache canada Limited. temporary power solutions can be used to bridge the gap between grid connection and 
permanent generation for emergency or supplementary onsite power or to offset electricity shortages.

19  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

ELECTRICITY  20

Permanent solutions can assist 
customers with reducing operating 
costs and increasing the reliability 
of power to operations, by bringing 
power closer to site, even in remote 
locations.

PROJECT UPDATES 
ATCO’s distributed generation 
business experienced growth in 
2015. The company was able to 
effectively demonstrate the reliability 
and cost-effectiveness of these 
nimble power solutions with new 
partners and clients.

apache’s House Mountain gas 
conservation Facilities 
ATCO Power completed its first 
temporary generation installation 
at the House Mountain Gas 
Conservation Plant near Swan Hills, 
Alberta for Apache Canada Limited 
and in cooperation with ATCO 
Electric (see sidebar, below).

Building upon the success of this 
important project, ATCO Power 
signed a 10-year power contract and 
agreement in September to build, 
own and operate a new permanent 
6 MW distributed generation facility 
at House Mountain to replace the 
temporary solution.

Applications to the Alberta Utilities 
Commission and Alberta Energy 
Regulator were submitted in 
December 2015 and January 2016, 
respectively, with an estimated in-
service date of May 2016.

north Montney Power Supply Project 
ATCO’s Electricity Global Business 
Unit has provided an integrated 
package of products and services 
to Progress Energy for its northeast 
British Columbia upstream assets. 
The proposed North Montney Power 
Supply (NMPS) project will consist 
of more than 140 km of high voltage 
transmission and distribution lines 
and a distributed generation solution 

atco 
permanent 
(5 units)
project
worksite

atco completed
(4 units) temporary 
generation

T E G RAT

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Bringing Power to Apache’s House Mountain 
Gas Conservation Facilities

that provides temporary power 
to early customer sites requiring 
electricity before the permanent 
solution is live.

The successful delivery of this 
project will rely on the Electricity 
Global Business Unit’s expertise in 
developing cost-effective and reliable 
infrastructure.

The NMPS project is currently 
undergoing regulatory review, and 
environmental surveys are being 
conducted. Once all regulatory 
applications are approved, 
construction will begin in 2016 with 
full operation expected in 2017.

Future Projects 
ATCO Power also entered into public 
consultation for two additional 
distributed generation projects – Karr 
(3 MW) and Simonette (15 MW), both 
located southeast of Grande Prairie, 
Alberta.

The Karr facility will utilize 
highly efficient, natural gas-fired 
reciprocating engine generators 
to meet the power demands of an 
adjacent facility in a remote light 
industrial area. The Simonette 
facility will use these same engines 
and locally produced natural gas 
to generate electricity that will 
be delivered to the ATCO Electric 
distribution grid. These facilities 
are scheduled to be in-service by 
the first and third quarters of 2016, 
respectively.

northern operations 
In the North, ATCO has delivered safe 
and reliable electricity service to its 
customers in the Yukon since 1901, 
and to customers in the Northwest 
Territories (NWT) since 1951. Through 
its operating companies, ATCO Electric 
Yukon and Northland Utilities, ATCO 
serves more than 17,000 customers 
in 19 communities in the Yukon, and 
11,000 customers in nine communities 
in the NWT (see map on pg. 23).

ATCO ELECTRIC YUKON 
In the Yukon, ATCO Electric Yukon 
distributes power and provides 
emergency response and retail services 
to customers in most communities 
across the territory. The company 
also generates diesel power in the 
communities of Old Crow, Beaver 
Creek, Destruction Bay/Burwash 
Landing, Watson Lake and Swift River.

In addition, the company owns and 
operates the Fish Lake Hydro Plant 
on the outskirts of Whitehorse.  Built 
in 1950 and refurbished in 2013, the 
1.3 MW Fish Lake Hydro Plant remains 
a steady contributor of power to the 
Yukon Interconnected System.

Project updates 
ATCO Electric Yukon is working with 
the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation and 
its partner to explore the feasibility 
of displacing diesel generation in 
the community of Old Crow with up 
to 300 kilowatts (kW) of solar power 
and battery storage. The project aims 
to lower the cost and environmental 

In the late spring, ATCO Power 
completed its first temporary 
generation installation at Apache 
Canada Limited’s House Mountain 
Gas Conservation Plant, near Swan 
Hills, Alberta.

This 5 MW onsite generation 
solution provided an alternate use 
for sweet sales gas produced at the 
site, that was previously being flared 
or trucked away due to a pipeline 
disruption.

ATCO Power installed four 1.25 MW 
natural gas-fired reciprocating 
engines, housed in sea cans, which 
were transported to the remote 
site on semi-trailer trucks and 
connected to the local ATCO Electric 
distribution system.

From concept to construction and 
commissioning, the House Mountain 
project took only four months to 
complete, despite the challenging 
remote location – a testament to 
the effective collaboration and 
focused efforts of ATCO Power and 

ATCO Electric in providing a value-
added customer solution.

The successful execution of the 
House Mountain temporary project 
demonstrated the incredible value 
ATCO Power’s distributed generation 
solution can deliver to customers 
– timely, flexible and reliable power 
generation to fit any need or resolve 
any issue, supported by a high-level 
of customer service and support.

a section of distribution line outside of Haines Junction, overlooking St. elias Mountain in the yukon. atco serves more than 
17,000 customers in the territory. 

21  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

ELECTRICITY  22

 
 
ATCO in the North

Alert

Eureka

Resolute Bay

ATCO Structures 
& Logistics Operations

Alaska Radar 
System Sites

Uqsuq Site

Inuvik Gas

Anchorage

Inuvik

Cambridge 
Bay

Iqaluit

Major 
Communities 
Served by 
ATCO Electric Yukon

1  Old Crow
2  Beaver Creek
3  Stewart Crossing
4  Keno
5  Pelly Crossing
6   Destruction Bay/ 
  Burwash Landing
7  Carmacks
8  Ross River
9  Haines Junction

10   Whitehorse/ 
Marsh Lake 
11  Carcross/Tagish
12  Teslin
13  Swift River
14  Watson Lake/ 
  Upper Liard
15  Lower Post, BC

Whitehorse

Yellowknife

1

Inuvik

YUKON

3

7

2

6

9

4

5

8

10
Whitehorse

13

11

12

14

15

16

Major Communities Served 
by Northland Utilities

16  Trout Lake
17  Dory Point
18  Fort Providence
19  Yellowknife/N’dilo
20  Wekweeti
21  Kakisa
22  Enterprise
23  Hay River/K’atl’odeeche First Nation

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

20

Yellowknife

19

18

17

23

21

22

impacts of local power production 
in this ‘fly-in only’ community, which 
currently relies solely on diesel-fuelled 
power generation, and have the 
Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation invest 
and manage the proposed renewable 
solution.

In the community of Burwash Landing, 
ATCO Electric Yukon, the Kluane First 
Nation and the Yukon Government are 
collaborating on a project that aims to 
displace up to 300 kW of existing diesel 
power generation with wind generation. 
The Yukon Government has committed 
$1 million to the project. ATCO and 
the Kluane First Nation are currently 
working together to study how and 
when the community uses electricity, 
and to research changes required to 
the local electrical system before wind 
turbines can be installed.

Together with the Town of Watson 
Lake and the Liard First Nation, 
ATCO Electric Yukon has funded a 
pre-feasibility study exploring the 
possibility of a hydro-generation facility 
on the Tootsee River. The facility, if 
constructed, would generate 2.4 MW 
of hydro power or 65 to 80 per cent 
of the community’s power needs, and 
displace approximately 70 per cent 
of the annual diesel fuel used by the 
Watson Lake power plant.

NORTHLAND UTILITIES 
Northland Utilities is a full service 
electricity company providing retail, 
distribution, transmission and 
generation services through its two 
operating divisions – Northland Utilities 
(Yellowknife) and Northland Utilities 
(NWT).

At a signing ceremony held in March 
2015 in Yellowknife, Denendeh 
Investments Incorporated (DII) and 
ATCO signed a Memorandum of 
Understanding that will see DII’s 
ownership in Northland Utilities 
increase from 14 to 50 per cent (see 
sidebar on pg. 38).

Project updates 
During the summer of 2015, 
Northland Utilities (NWT) put forward 
an innovative, customer-focused 
proposal to negotiate a new franchise 
agreement with the Town of Hay River, 
a community where the company is 
based and has served for more than 
six decades. The proposal included 
many environmentally progressive 
initiatives designed to reduce electricity 
use, including evaluating residential 
and commercial solar generation and 
battery storage options, and developing 
an electricity conservation program for 
customers as well as some potential 
community initiatives.

The current franchise agreement does 
not expire until November 30, 2016. 
Northland continues to work with the 
Town of Hay River to negotiate a new 
franchise agreement and the NWT 
Government to find solutions to lower 
power rates across the territory.

Both Northland divisions have also 
taken a progressive position on their 
environmental commitment by working 
together with many of the communities 
they serve to replace high pressure 
sodium streetlights with LEDs, and to 
reduce reliance on diesel fuel power 
generation.

In the thermal communities of Fort 
Providence, Kakisa/Dory Point, 
Wekweeti and Trout Lake, streetlight 
conversions were completed in 2015. 
In Yellowknife, Northland Utilities and 
the city have partnered on a five-year 
project to replace more than 1,500 high 
pressure sodium streetlights with more 
efficient LED technology. By the end 
of the project in 2016, the conversion 
will have the potential to save 975,000 
kilowatt hours of electricity annually – 
enough power to serve 108 homes.

Also in Fort Providence, Northland is 
working with the community to explore 
the feasibility of two major projects 
that would introduce renewable power 
generation sources in the community. 

inCharge Conservation 
Program

In late 2014, ATCO Electric Yukon 
and Yukon Energy Corporation 
launched an electricity 
conservation program which 
offers Yukon residents rebates 
when they purchase LED lighting 
and mechanical automotive block 
heater timers. The LED lighting 
purchase program exceeded 
expectations, with 2,800 rebates 
redeemed by customers in year 
one, exceeding the program target 
by more than 1,000 rebates.

23  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

ELECTRICITY  24

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In the short-term, a combined heat and 
power biomass facility will warm and 
light a local business. Excess power 
generated by the biomass facility would 
be sold to Northland to help offset the 
amount of diesel power generation 
required to provide electricity to the 
remainder of the community.

In the medium to longer term, 
Northland is revisiting its business case 
to construct a 120 km transmission line 
from Hay River to Fort Providence. The 
new transmission line would deliver 
the excess hydro power that currently 
exists at the Taltson hydro-generating 
facility in southern NWT and use it to 
deliver cleaner, renewable power to the 
approximately 400 customers in Fort 
Providence, Dory Point and Kakisa.

international 
operations 

AUSTRALIA 
ATCO Power Australia has ownership 
in and operates two power generation 
facilities in the country – Osborne, a 
180 MW combined-cycle facility in 
South Australia and Karratha Power 
Station, a 86 MW power generation 
facility in the mining-dominated 
Pilbara region of Western Australia. In 
2015, ATCO Power Australia’s solid 
performance achieved commercial 
availability of approximately 
98 per cent.

Project updates 
In July 2015, the Osborne facility 
began operating under a new Power 
Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Origin 
Energy Electricity Limited, the 100 per 
cent off-taker of power produced. The 
new tolling agreement provides flexible 
dispatch of power from the facility.

In 2015, Karratha, the most efficient 
and environmentally friendly facility in 
the North West Interconnected System, 
continued its record of operational 
excellence under a long-term PPA 
with Horizon Power. In a separate 
arrangement, ATCO also provides 

25  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

operations and maintenance (O&M) 
services to Horizon Power’s nearby 
TM2500 gas turbine. In November, 
Horizon Power extended the TM2500 
O&M contract for an additional 
12-month period.

ATCO Power Australia’s joint-venture 
cogeneration facility with Origin Energy, 
located in Queensland and servicing 
the BP Bulwer Island Refinery, ceased 
operation on June 23, 2015. The station 
closed as a result of BP’s decision to 
shut down the Bulwer Island Refinery 
by mid-2015. A negotiated termination 
agreement with BP resulted in the 
sale and handover of the facility in 
June, with no further decommissioning 
obligations.

MEXICO 
In 2015, ATCO Power continued 
to work with its Mexican partners 
to further the development of the 
natural gas-fired cogeneration plant 
at the Miguel Hidalgo Refinery, 

near the town of Tula in the state 
of Hidalgo, Mexico. The main 
focus of project activity centred on 
project requirements and design, 
obtaining environmental and 
regulatory approvals and negotiating 
commercial agreements.

Located in an attractive, high-
demand area, this plant is expected 
to have a generating capacity of 450 
MW of electricity, with a provision 
to expand to 638 MW and produce 
approximately 1,247 tonnes of steam 
per hour to support the refinery’s 
processes.

Part of the available electricity 
produced will be supplied to off-
takers and the Mexican National 
Grid, providing low-emission, highly 
efficient energy.

atco’s Karratha Power Station is the most efficient and environmentally friendly 
facility in australia’s north West interconnected System.

atco’s urban Pipeline replacement 
Program replaces and relocates vintage, high 
pressure natural gas pipelines in calgary and 
edmonton to transportation/utility corridors 
and adds capacity to meet the growing 
demands for safe and reliable natural gas 
service to alberta’s largest centres. 

george Lidgett
Managing Director, 
Pipelines & Liquids

PIPELINES 
& LIQUIDS

GLOBAL BUSINESS UNIT  

As part of ATCO’s transformational change, the Pipelines & Liquids 
Global Business Unit has expanded its focus beyond Alberta’s borders 
to one that is global in nature, pursuing new markets with innovative, 
vertically integrated products to grow our business both in Alberta and 
abroad.

Our new organization, which includes ATCO Gas, ATCO Pipelines, 
ATCO Energy Solutions and ATCO Gas Australia, enables us to leverage 
the strengths of our component companies in natural gas transmission 
and distribution, liquids storage and industrial water solutions—all of 
which position us to offer fully integrated, cost-effective energy and 
water solutions to make life easier for our customers.

The benefits of vertical integration are already evident through projects 
such as our Urban Pipeline Replacement Program, which is a proactive 
solution to modernize both our natural gas transmission and distribution 
networks in high-density areas of Calgary and Edmonton improving 
safety for our customers.

As we enter 2016 with a continued depressed economy, our business 
unit will focus on cost-effectiveness, research and development, and 
operational excellence to successfully compete in a global market. One 
of our greatest strengths as we explore new markets is our operational 
capabilities, where industry benchmarking ranks us in the first quartile in 
many areas of operational excellence. Going forward, we will continue 
to distinguish ourselves in supplying safe, reliable services to our 
existing customers and in new markets.

As we look to expand, we plan to build upon our initial entry to the 
Mexico market, as well as pursue opportunities in the U.S., Australia 
and South America. This is coupled with a strong emphasis on 
increasing our sales and marketing capabilities through sales training 
programs for everyone in the global business unit.

To support ongoing innovation, we’ve established a dedicated research 
and development team which is focused on developing, purchasing 
and experimenting with leading and green technologies to drive 
new and creative business opportunities and provide innovative and 
environmentally friendly solutions for customers.

By bringing imaginative solutions to market, we will be well-positioned 
in the Pipelines & Liquids Global Business Unit to manage through 
these challenging economic times while creating important growth 
opportunities for the future.

George Lidgett

PIPELINES & LIQUIDS  26

natural gas 
distribution  
ATCO Gas, part of the Pipelines & 
Liquids Global Business Unit, has 
been heating homes and warming 
communities across Alberta for more 
than a century. Today, ATCO Gas 
provides safe, reliable and cost-
effective natural gas delivery to more 
than 1.1 million customers in nearly 
300 Alberta communities.

As Alberta’s largest natural gas 
distribution company, ATCO Gas 
builds, owns, operates and maintains 
more than 40,000 km of natural gas 
distribution pipelines. ATCO Gas 
provides 24-hour response to natural 
gas emergencies in its service territory, 
responds quickly and efficiently 
to customer service requests, and 
adheres to the highest standards to 
maintain the reliability of its pipeline 
system.

INVESTING IN CAPITAL 
INFRASTRUCTURE 
In 2015, ATCO Gas delivered strong 
capital growth, investing $331 million 
in capital projects — installing 785 km 
of pipeline and connecting more than 
20,000 primary service lines to its 
network.

With a continued focus on the safety 
and reliability of ATCO’s growing 
pipeline network, the company invested 
more than $85 million in replacing 
approximately 40 km of steel and 250 
km of plastic natural gas pipelines 
with polyethylene pipe as part of its 
steel and plastic mains replacement 
program.

NATURAL GAS SAFETY 
In 2015, ATCO Gas completed 
underwater inspections of all its 
existing pipeline crossings in larger 
rivers to verify and record system 
integrity. The inspections determine 
whether these facilities are at risk 
during high water events and will 

allow for the appropriate preventative 
measures to be put in place. As part 
of its regular maintenance, ATCO Gas 
inspects its water crossings yearly. 

ATCO Gas carried on its commitment 
to public safety through various safety 
initiatives across the province. Through 
its Damage Prevention Program, aimed 
at achieving yearly reductions in the 
frequency of damages to its buried 
infrastructure, ATCO Gas focused on 
educating excavators and customers 
on safe digging practices around 
natural gas pipelines. In 2015, ATCO 
Gas provided more than 300,000 gas 
line locates to support safe digging 
practices across the province.

The company’s Carbon Monoxide 
Awareness Campaign, in 
partnership with the Office of the 
Fire Commissioner and local fire 

departments, continued to raise 
awareness about the dangers of carbon 
monoxide and how Albertans can 
prevent and detect it. This campaign 
has garnered support from the 
Canadian Gas Association and the 
Canadian Fire Chiefs Association and 
is becoming a national initiative among 
other Canadian gas companies.

In recognition of its Carbon Monoxide 
Awareness Campaign, ATCO Gas 
received a National Safety Leadership 
Award in Public Safety from the 
Canadian Gas Association and a 2015 
Gold Award from the Canadian Public 
Relations Society for the Canadian 
Issues/Crisis Management Campaign 
of the Year.

COMMITTED TO CUSTOMERS 
ATCO Gas customers continue to enjoy 
one of the lowest natural gas delivery 

rates in Canada. In 2015, ATCO Gas 
responded to more than 126,000 
customer-initiated service calls and 
nearly 3,000 natural gas emergency 
calls. Overall, the company’s call 
centre received almost 180,000 calls, 
averaging nearly 500 calls per day.

The company continued to enhance 
relationships with its customers and 
this year brought its Customer Care 
and Billing Services back in-house. This 
enables the company to provide hands-
on customer service, with skilled and 
knowledgeable employees responding 
to customer calls and concerns.

INNOVATION 
ATCO Gas has a strong focus 
on innovation and research and 
development as it strives to deliver 
more competitive, customer-focused 
solutions throughout its service 
areas. The company’s Innovation 
and Engineering team is exploring 
technologies to further improve 
services for customers, reduce carbon 
emissions and create operational 
efficiencies across the company.

Through its continual improvement 
program, IdeaWorks 2.0, ATCO Gas 
encourages its employees to share 
ideas leading to positive change 
throughout the company.

One example of these ideas is reducing 
costs and creating efficiencies when it 
comes to obtaining compressed natural 
gas (CNG) trailer pressure readings. 
A remote trailer pressure reading 
device was developed that attaches 
to portable CNG trailers. Employees 
can now text the device to obtain 
gas pressure readings from the trailer 
without having to send a team out to 
do the task manually, saving both time 
and money.

This device has received approval from 
the Canadian Standards Association 
and is being rolled out across the 
company. 

COMBINED HEAT AND POWER 
TECHNOLOGY 
Through its Product Development 
team, ATCO Gas continued to focus 
on the marketing and sales of natural 
gas-fired and alternative technologies, 

atco gas damage prevention coordinators give a safety demonstration 
during a trade show in calgary.

a calgary transit bus fuels up with compressed natural gas at atco gas’s newly 
retrofitted, state-of-the-art natural gas vehicle refuelling station in calgary.

Fuel Efficiency Program

ATCO Gas launched a company-
wide fuel efficiency program in 2015, 
aimed at reducing fuel consumption 
by five per cent per year. This initiative 
saw savings on fuel costs, reduced 
greenhouse gas emissions, fewer 
vehicle repairs, longer vehicle life and 
increased safety for company drivers.

At the end of 2015, ATCO Gas 
exceeded its goal with a total fuel 
consumption reduction of 6.7 per 
cent over the year. The program also 
provided significant environmental 
benefits. Over the past year, ATCO Gas 
saved more than 700,000 kg of CO2, 
the equivalent of 18,238 seedlings 
planted and grown for 10 years or 142 
vehicles off the road for a year.

With a large fleet of vehicles, company 
drivers were critical to the program’s 
success. Training on how to reduce fuel 
consumption through regular vehicle 
maintenance and fuel efficient driving 
practices was incorporated into ATCO 
Gas’s regular driver training program. 
This information was also shared with 
all employees across the company, 
giving them the opportunity to 
implement these practices and benefit 
from reduced fuel consumption in their 
personal vehicles.

Throughout the year, fuel usage was 
tracked monthly by work groups. The 
groups most successful in reducing 
fuel consumption were recognized for 
their efforts in making the program a 
success.

142 Vehicles off 

the road*

700,000 kg CO2 

removed

*Reducing fuel consumption by 6.7% saved more than 
700,000 kg of CO2, the equivalent of 18,238 seedlings planted 
and grown for 10 years or 142 vehicles off the road for a year. 

27  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

PIPELINES & LIQUIDS   28

including combined heat and power 
(CHP) technology. CHP can increase 
energy efficiency and reduce energy 
costs and greenhouse gas emissions 
in municipal and commercial facilities. 
The technology uses natural gas as a 
primary fuel source to generate both 
heat and electricity simultaneously.

customers, ATCO Gas opened a new 
public NGV refuelling station in Grande 
Prairie and updated one of its NGV 
refuelling stations in Calgary with 
all new, state-of-the-art equipment, 
allowing for faster fill-up times. ATCO 
Gas currently operates 12 public NGV 
refuelling stations across the province.

In 2015, ATCO Gas secured a contract 
to install CHP technology at the 
Lakeside Leisure Centre in Brooks. The 
company currently operates CHP units 
at the Collicutt Centre recreation facility 
in Red Deer and the Sierras of Tuscany 
condo complex in Calgary, as well as at 
three of ATCO’s own facilities. The CHP 
program is currently partially funded 
by the Climate Change and Emissions 
Management Corporation. 

NATURAL GAS VEHICLES 
With 155 natural gas vehicles (NGV), 
representing 14 per cent of ATCO 
Gas’s fleet, the company operates 
the largest NGV fleet in Alberta. Using 
NGVs provides a 20 to 25 per cent 
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions 
and fuel savings for the company. To 
support the growth of NGVs across 
the province and to better serve NGV 

GROWTH 
Despite Alberta’s slowing economy in 
2015, ATCO Gas continued to grow 
its customer base, adding more than 
24,000 customers, a two per cent 
increase in customer base.

The company also received 
approval from the Alberta Utilities 
Commission on a new gas franchise 
template agreement it successfully 
negotiated with the Alberta Urban 
Municipalities Association. This new 
template agreement enables ATCO 
Gas to efficiently renew distribution 
service rights in communities using a 
standardized contract. In 2015, ATCO 
Gas renewed 25 franchise agreements 
with communities across Alberta, of 
which 24 were renewed using the new 
template.

ATCO ENERGY 
EDUCATION MOBILE 
ENGAGEMENT

200 

COMMUNITIES 
VISITED

73,000 

PARTICIPANTS

In 2015, the ATCO Energy Education 
Mobile, an interactive classroom 
on wheels, celebrated five years of 
educating students and the public 
about Alberta’s energy resources 
and using energy wisely. Since its 
launch, the ATCO Energy Education 
Mobile has visited more than 200 
communities and engaged more 
than 73,000 participants.

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Urban Pipeline 
Replacement Program

In 2015, a major focus of the Pipelines & Liquids Global 
Business Unit was the continuation of the Urban Pipeline 
Replacement (UPR) Program, which was approved by the 
Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) in early 2014.

PROJECT UPDATES 
In 2015, ATCO received AUC facilities permits and began 
construction on the first three segments of the UPR Program 
in Calgary:

The multi-year UPR Program is a proactive solution to 
improve public safety, modernize the natural gas network 
and add the capacity needed to meet growing demand for 
natural gas in Alberta’s two largest centres – Calgary and 
Edmonton.

The program will see existing vintage high pressure 
pipelines in these centres either removed from service or 
recommissioned as low pressure natural gas distribution 
lines, which will be operated and maintained by ATCO 
Gas. In addition, new, modern high pressure transmission 
pipelines will be installed by ATCO Pipelines primarily within 
the Transportation/Utility Corridors surrounding both cities. 
ATCO Gas will also construct several new low pressure lines 
and gate stations to connect its system to ATCO Pipelines’ 
new infrastructure.

Detailed environmental protection plans were developed and 
horizontal directional drilling is used to minimize impacts to 
roadways and environmentally sensitive areas.

All of these projects involved extensive public engagement to 
ensure homeowners and businesses near the pipeline routes 
were aware of the projects, the facility approval process and 
ATCO’s approach to constructing pipelines.

1.  Northeast Calgary Connector (NECC) – 16.7 km, 24” 
pipeline from 16th Avenue N.E. to 52nd Street N.E.

2.  East Calgary Connector (ECC) – 8.7 km, 30” pipeline from 

16th Avenue N.E. to Peigan Trail S.E.

3.  Southeast Calgary Connector (SECC) – 13.4 km, 24” 
pipeline from Peigan Trail S.E. to Highway 22X S.E.

By the end of the year, construction was finished on NECC 
and nearing completion on the ECC and SECC projects.  
ATCO Gas also completed several distribution installations 
to connect to the ATCO Pipelines system, most notably 
a new gate station and distribution mains adjacent to the 
communities of Chaparral and Sundance in Calgary.

Public consultation activities were carried out for the 
Southwest Edmonton Connector, the West Calgary 
Connector, and two lateral high pressure pipeline projects in 
northeast Calgary in 2015. In addition, a public information 
session was held for a new low pressure natural gas pipeline 
project in Calgary’s Fish Creek Park. Construction is planned 
to begin on all of these projects in 2016. The program in its 
entirety is expected to be completed in 2018.

in december 2015, atco Pipelines opened its new 19,000 sq. ft. South operations 
centre in airdrie. it features 12,000 sq. ft. of office space, room for material and 
equipment storage, and two drive-through vehicle bays and a storage bay. 

through the uPr Program, atco Pipelines is building new, high pressure pipelines in t ransportation/utility corridors in 
calgary and edmonton.

29  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

PIPELINES & LIQUIDS   30

 
 
natural gas 
transmission 
ATCO Pipelines plays an integral role 
in delivering natural gas in the Alberta 
marketplace serving producers, as well 
as distribution companies and major 
industrial customers.

With peak delivery of 3.8 billion cubic 
feet per day, ATCO Pipelines owns 
and operates approximately 8,500 
km of transmission pipeline serving 
customers through almost 4,000 
receipt and delivery points.

ALBERTA SYSTEM 
INTEGRATION 
The Alberta System Integration 
involves ATCO Pipelines and Nova Gas 
Transmission Limited (NGTL) combining 
physical assets under a single rates 
and services structure, as well as a 
single commercial customer interface, 
as approved by the Alberta Utilities 
Commission and National Energy 
Board.

The exchange of assets is the final 
stage required to complete the 
integration. The exchange of pipelines 
and facilities within defined geographic 
areas will help streamline operations 
and will be completed in four phases in 
2016.

PIPELINE INTEGRITY 
ATCO Pipelines has a comprehensive, 
multi-faceted pipeline integrity program 
that includes regular pipeline integrity 
inspections, leak detection surveys and 
proactive maintenance.

In 2015, Smart Pigs, or In-Line 
Inspection Tools (ILI), were again used 
to inspect approximately 500 km of 
pipe ranging in size from 219 mm to 
762 mm (8” to 30”), including a major 
loop in Jasper National Park.

The ILI tools provide data on the 
condition of a pipeline which helps to 
gauge its health and integrity. These 

31  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

technologically advanced devices are 
equipped with highly tuned sensors 
that can gauge the thickness of the 
pipes they are travelling through, and 
detect cracks, fissures, erosion and 
other problems that may affect the 
integrity of the pipeline.

•  Specialized annual surveys 

conducted to monitor the condition 
of all pipeline watercourse crossings 
and pipeline right-of-way conditions;

•  Geological surveys and frost stability 

monitoring;

Additional integrity management 
activities include:

•  Cathodic protection surveys and 
monitoring conducted throughout 
the pipeline systems to ensure that 
cathodic protection systems are 

this brand new, state-of-the-art electro-Magnetic acoustic transducer in-line 
inspection tool was used to conduct testing on a 95 km segment of 24” pipeline 
from rimbey to edmonton, alberta.

operating and protecting the pipelines 
as intended;

•  External coating direct assessments 

on specific pipelines to assess 
coating conditions, anomalies 
and cathodic protection system 
performance; and

•  Pipeline dig programs as a follow-

up if surveys suggest there may be 
issues. 

SAFETY 
In September, ATCO Pipelines marked 
13 years without a lost-time incident, 
a milestone achieved by continuously 
focusing on building and maintaining 
safe work practices, both in the field 
and in the office.

ATCO Pipelines’ strong safety culture 
permeates throughout the organization. 
The company’s safety program – Target 
Zero – aims to keep all employees 
injury, incident and collision-free 
by reminding each individual of the 
importance of personal safety.

Comprehensive training programs are 
in place to ensure everyone at ATCO 
Pipelines, including contractors, have 
the knowledge and resources to work 
safely and achieve Target Zero. Only 
those who share these safety values 
are selected to work on ATCO Pipelines 
projects.

Hydrocarbon Storage 
and industrial Water 
ATCO Energy Solutions’ role in the 
Pipelines & Liquids Global Business 
Unit is to build, own and operate 
natural gas, natural gas liquids 
(NGL) and industrial water-related 
infrastructure to serve the midstream 
sector of Western Canada’s energy 
industry. The company offers tailored 
solutions for product storage, 
processing and transportation that 
provide customers with exceptional 
business value.

Through the company’s service base, 
the ATCO Heartland Energy Centre 
located in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, 
ATCO Energy Solutions is developing 

a full suite of infrastructure options for 
the NGL processing, petroleum refining 
and petrochemical markets, including 
industrial water transportation and pre-
treatment, salt cavern storage, as well 
as future transportation, processing 
and terminalling services.

The ATCO Heartland Industrial Water 
System, a multi-user water system 
connected to the North Saskatchewan 
River, facilitates the provision of reliable 
integrated water and related services 
including pipeline transportation, water 
treatment, recycling and disposal, to 
industrial customers.

Although traditionally ATCO Energy 
Solutions has been a company 
focused primarily on midstream 
service offerings, such as natural gas 
gathering, processing and storage, as 
well as natural gas liquids extraction, 
2015 saw a shift in focus to reflect 
ATCO’s overall strategy of divesting 
non-core assets and redeploying 
capital to new areas of strength and 
growth, specifically hydrocarbon 
storage and industrial water solutions.

ATCO Energy Solutions in the Heartland

  INDUSTRIAL WATER
  River water intake and pump station
  Sturgeon pipeline
  Heartland pipeline
  Scotford pipeline
  Customer delivery points

  HYDROCARBON STORAGE
  Salt cavern storage facility

Industrial customers

  ATCO Heartland Energy Centre

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PIPELINES & LIQUIDS   32

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
  
 
HYDROCARBON STORAGE 
In 2015, ATCO Energy Solutions 
continued to advance its development 
of NGL storage capacity through its 
salt cavern storage project at the ATCO 
Heartland Energy Centre located in 
Alberta’s Industrial Heartland.

The initial salt cavern facility will consist 
of four salt caverns with the capacity to 
store 400,000 cubic metres of propane, 
butane and ethylene and will be 
connected to partner Petrogas Energy 
Corporation’s Fort Saskatchewan 
hydrocarbon truck and rail terminal 
that currently receives and distributes 
multiple products in the marketplace.

Throughout the year, the development 
of the initial facility reached several 
milestones, including the completion 
of initial drilling of all four caverns, the 
start of mining at the first two caverns, 
and the start of construction on the 

brine pond, pump station and product 
handling facility.

In 2015, ATCO secured long-term 
agreements for all four of its initial salt 
caverns. In response, the company 
announced it had acquired an 
additional 160 acres of land and 400 
acres of salt mineral rights, providing 
ATCO with the potential to develop an 
additional 40 salt caverns based on 
market demand.

Outside of Alberta’s Industrial Heartland 
region, the company also owns a 
commercial natural gas storage facility, 
which it has more than 45 years of 
experience operating. Located near 
Carbon, Alberta, the facility features 
23 storage wells with a working gas 
capacity of 52 petajoules and is 
strategically connected to multiple 
transmission pipelines in the area.

In 2015, ATCO Energy Solutions 
invested in upgrading and optimizing 
the facility through the installation 
of a new central dehydration facility 
and replacement of the facility control 
system. This resulted in a 13 per cent 
increase of working gas capacity. 
The company remains focused on 
increasing long-term contracts, product 
offerings, as well as diversifying its 
customer base.

INDUSTRIAL WATER 
With more than three decades 
of owning and operating water 
infrastructure in Alberta’s Industrial 
Heartland, ATCO Energy Solutions 
continues to focus on delivering 
innovative and sustainable industrial 
water solutions in Canada’s largest 
hydrocarbon processing region.

In 2015, the company completed 
several projects, representing 
an investment of approximately 
$50 million, to expand and improve 
its multi-user water system. By 
continuing to invest and develop a 
common system shared by multiple 
customers, ATCO is able to ensure 
customers receive the water they need 
for their industrial processes, while also 
producing a number of environmental 
benefits such as minimizing disruption 
to the river valley, and creating 
opportunities to recycle and reuse 
water within the system.

The expanded intake connected to 
the new pump station is a sustainable 
solution that reduces the need for 
additional intakes along the river and 
protects fish by preventing them from 
entering the water system.

This year ATCO Energy Solutions 
entered into a long-term commercial 
agreement with Air Products Canada 
Ltd. to provide water pre-treatment, in 
addition to previously commercialized 
water transportation services for the 
company’s hydrogen facility near Fort 
Saskatchewan. 

Highlights of the company’s 
investments include a new pump 
station facility with an expanded water 
intake on the North Saskatchewan 
River. The new pump station is a key 
piece of strategic infrastructure that not 
only allows ATCO to provide customers 
with a reliable source of water, but also 
supplies water to the ATCO Heartland 
Energy Centre nearby where it is used 
to help build the company’s salt cavern 
storage facilities.

Customers receiving pre-treated 
water benefit from substantially 
improved industrial water quality, in 
addition to freeing up land at their 
operations previously dedicated to 
water treatment. With the addition of 
this service, ATCO Energy Solutions 
continues to grow the company’s suite 
of water and wastewater services 
provided to industrial customers 
throughout Alberta’s Industrial 
Heartland.

international 
operations 

AUSTRALIA 
ATCO Gas Australia owns and operates 
the largest regulated gas distribution 
network in Western Australia. It also 
operates two separate non-regulated 
gas distribution networks, one serving 
the mining centre of Kalgoorlie and 
the second, a liquefied petroleum gas 
distribution network serving Albany, 
the largest centre in the great southern 
region of the state.

growth 
Increases in new subdivision 
expansions and the construction of 
residential homes resulted in ATCO 
Gas Australia’s strongest performance 
since acquiring the gas distribution 
network in 2011. In 2015, the company 
connected nearly 26,000 customers to 
its gas service.

atco energy Solutions’ new industrial water pump station, strategically located on the north Saskatchewan 
river in alberta’s industrial Heartland.

nick Smith and aden bourke, gas distribution officers, commissioning a new gas main pipeline to Kings Square in the Perth 
city centre, part of one of australia’s most significant urban renewal developments.

33  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

PIPELINES & LIQUIDS   34

 
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Reducing Costs for Customers with 
Gas-Powered Air Conditioning

ATCO Gas Australia is helping 
commercial and light industrial 
customers dramatically reduce their 
electricity costs through the use 
of Gas-Powered Air Conditioning 
(GPAC). GPAC is a proven  
technology that, when coupled with 
the reliability of ATCO’s gas network, 
provides a practical alternative 
to electric air conditioning units. 
Through solutions provided by 
ATCO Gas Australia, customers 
have reduced operating costs by 
up to 40 per cent.

Gas Australia is offering customers a 
special rebate for the installation of 
multiple units to reduce the up-front 
cost and better compete with electric 
air conditioning options.

In August 2015, ATCO Gas Australia 
issued its first GPAC rebate to Morris 
Fresh IGA, an independent grocery 
store in the northern suburbs of 
Perth. The supermarket suffered from 
electrical grid capacity constraints, 
a significant issue across the Perth 
metropolitan area. 

The company installed four, 85 kW 
reverse cycle units at its Jandakot 
Operations Centre to efficiently 
cool and heat the facility and now 
offers educational seminars at the 
centre to showcase the technology 
and its benefits. ATCO’s Business 
Development team is also working 
closely with leading Heating 
Ventilation and Air Conditioning  
consultants to inform this influential 
group about the technology and its 
many benefits. Additionally, ATCO 

Store owners identified GPAC as 
their preferred option to meet their 
heating and cooling needs, given 
the availability of safe, reliable and 
cost-effective natural gas supply 
from ATCO Gas Australia’s network, 
as well as environmental advantages 
and reduced operational costs of 
the GPAC system. With growing 
understanding and recognition of 
the benefits of GPAC, it’s a solution 
ATCO Gas Australia looks forward to 
assisting more customers install in 
the future.

environment 
In 2015, ATCO Gas Australia 
implemented an education program to 
reduce engine run-times on operational 
vehicles and operate secondary 
equipment electrically, which has 
resulted in reduced carbon emissions 
from operations. Work has also begun 
to modify compatible vehicles within 
the ATCO Gas Australia fleet to allow 
Compressed Natural Gas dual fuel 
capabilities, with refuelling onsite at the 
Jandakot Operations Centre which will 
lead to further emissions reductions.

ATCO Gas Australia also provided 
its expertise to the City of Fremantle, 
Western Australia’s first carbon neutral 
Council. A review by the Council of 
its leisure centre pool heating system 
identified it as a significant source 
of emissions. An energy audit was 
conducted, resulting in a new mix of 
technologies, including a 75 kW natural 
gas cogeneration unit and natural 

gas boiler for peak loads, installed to 
reduce operating costs and carbon 
footprint.

MEXICO 

ramal tula gas Pipeline 
In 2015, ATCO continued to position 
itself for new opportunities in the 
Mexican market while gaining valuable 
learnings from its experiences during 
the construction of the Ramal Tula Gas 
Pipeline project. ATCO’s first project in 
the country, awarded by the Comisión 
Federal de Electricidad (CFE), is part 
of Mexico’s undertaking to develop 
new pipeline infrastructure to enable 
the country to move towards a self-
sustaining, cleaner energy future. 
When complete, the 16 km pipeline 
will transport natural gas to the CFE’s 
Francisco Pérez Ríos thermoelectric 
power plant, enabling the production of 
cleaner energy at considerably reduced 
costs.

Prior to beginning construction of the 
project, the company undertook a 
thorough environmental study in the 
communities along the pipeline route. 
Construction is now well underway 
and has involved significant work in 
negotiating with communities and 
collaborating with project partners ICA 
Fluor, Arendal and the CFE.

community involvement 
In the communities where ATCO is 
building the pipeline, a Social Action 
Plan has been implemented to create 
positive long-term relationships. 
Multiple community outreach meetings 
have been held to discuss the pipeline 
project and answer questions. 
ATCO also believes in investing in 
communities where it has the privilege 
to operate, and has invested in 
repairing roads and schools and in 
completing community centre upgrades 
that will benefit current residents and 
future generations.

The Town of Mandurah and its 
surrounding area continues to be one 
of the highest growth areas in Australia. 
During the past decade, ATCO Gas 
Australia has seen its customer base 
in this area increase by approximately 
70 per cent to more than 87,000 
customers. To service the growing 
needs of the region, in 2015 a new 
operations base was purchased to 
meet future expansion requirements.

investing in capital infrastructure 
2015 saw the company complete an 
unprecedented gas mains upgrade 
program to improve more than 
37 km of mains and 2,500 domestic 
and commercial connections. 
These upgrades removed cast iron, 
unprotected metallic mains, odd-sized 
steel and aging polyvinyl chloride pipe 
(PVC) from the gas distribution system, 
to improve network integrity and 
reinforce the security of supply.

The PVC replacement program is 
another first for the network, providing 
critical learnings for the development 
of maintenance and replacement 
plans going forward. The mains 
upgrade program has opened areas 
of the network to increased operating 
pressure, thereby providing additional 
capacity for new domestic and 
commercial customers.

To support ATCO Gas Australia’s 
capital infrastructure growth, the 
company launched targeted marketing 
designed to educate and incentivize 
the commercial and industrial sector. 
The program focuses on natural gas 
technologies, including Gas-Powered 
Air Conditioning (GPAC), as well 
as embedded cogeneration and 
trigeneration with incentives to reduce 
the upfront capital costs and drive 
demand for this new technology (see 
sidebar, left).

nathan Lude, Manager, business development (left), presenting Sanjay Malde 
with a rebate for the gPac units recently installed at iga Morris Fresh, which 
has reduced its heating and cooling costs by 40 per cent.

35  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

construction on atco’s ramal tula gas Pipeline is well underway. the pipeline will transport natural gas to the comisión 
Federal de electricidad’s Francisco Pérez ríos thermoelectric power plant.

PIPELINES & LIQUIDS  36

Indigenous 
Partnerships

ceremonial drummers open 
an event in yellowknife, 
nWt, to celebrate the 
signing of a Memorandum 
of understanding that will 
see denendeh investments 
incorporated become 
equal owners with atco in 
northland utilities.

Building and sustaining positive 
relationships with Indigenous 
communities is core to how ATCO 
does business. The company has long 
adopted an approach that involves 
trust, respect and understanding with 
the overarching goal of developing 
lasting partnerships that contribute 
to sustainable economic and social 
development in the communities it 
serves.

ATCO has more than 40 joint-venture 
partnerships, services agreements and 
other relationships with Indigenous 
communities, many of which have been 
in place for decades (see map on pg. 
39). 

NEW BUSINESS INITIATIVES 
March 18, 2015 was an important day 
in the history of one of ATCO’s longest 
standing partnerships. Denendeh 
Investments Incorporated (DII), 
representing more than 75 per cent 
of the Indigenous population in the 
Northwest Territories (NWT), signed a 
Memorandum of Understanding that 

will see DII’s ownership in Northland 
Utilities increase from 14 to 50 per cent 
(see sidebar on pg. 38).

Also in 2015, ATCO’s partnership with 
the Nunatsiavut Inuit of Labrador under 
Torngait Services Inc. was awarded a 
new contract by Valard Construction 
to provide catering, operations and 
maintenance services for five workforce 
lodges in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Other recent partnerships include ATCO 
Energy Solutions’ agreement with the 
Simpcw First Nation in British Columbia 
to pursue opportunities in the energy 
infrastructure development sector;  
ATCO Power’s joint-venture agreement 
with the Sahtu Dene Council to develop 
renewable energy projects in the NWT; 
and ATCO Structures & Logistics’ 
recent joint-venture partnerships with 
Alexander First Nation in Alberta and 
the Naha Dehe (Nahanni Butte Dene 
Band) in the NWT.

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING 
PROGRAMS 
ATCO makes a priority of supporting 
initiatives that provide education 
and experience to help youth enter 
the workplace. ATCO’s joint-venture 
partnerships often include work 
placement opportunities and on-the-
job training. For example, in 2015 
ATCO Sustainable Communities 
supported the Blood Tribe in 
re-opening its housing manufacturing 
plant, providing youth with on-the-
job training and support. ATCO also 
provides workforce training through its 
partnerships with the Woodland Cree 
and the Haisla First Nations in British 
Columbia. 

In 2015, ATCO Electric introduced the 
Youth Engagement Mentorship Pilot 
Program, a one-year agreement with 
Siksika First Nation which integrated 
qualified youth into ATCO’s in-house 
construction crew. Following the 
training and mentorship program, 
two very strong candidates became 
permanent ATCO Electric employees. 

Supporting Indigenous youth in the 
pursuit of post-secondary education 
is a priority for ATCO. The company 
recognizes students from Indigenous 
communities who demonstrate 
leadership capabilities through several 
scholarship programs, offering financial 
assistance to Indigenous students who 
demonstrate exceptional leadership 
qualities, a commitment to education 
and community involvement. ATCO 
also provides two annual scholarships 
for Treaty Seven First Nations students 
at the University of Lethbridge and five 
annual scholarships at Aurora College 
in the NWT.

ATCO companies also support 
unique cadet programs in several 
Alberta communities to offer 
education, mentorship and skills 
training to Indigenous youth. Through 
sponsorships of the Bold Eagle Cadet 
Program – a unique partnership 
between the Aboriginal Veterans 
Society of Alberta and the Canadian 

nancy Southern, atco’s chair, President & chief executive officer, with 
darrell beaulieu, ceo, denendeh investments incorporated, at a signing 
ceremony in yellowknife, nWt.

Near 30-Year Partnership Takes Logical Next Step 

On March 18, 2015 ATCO and 
Denendeh Investments Incorporated 
(DII) signed a historic Memorandum 
of Understanding (MOU) that will see 
DII’s ownership stake in Northland 
Utilities increase from 14 to 50 per 
cent. This action represents the logical 
next step in a mutually beneficial 
business partnership that has grown 
since 1987. 

DII is a First Nations-owned company 
that was created to invest in programs 
and business ventures to help build 
sustainable communities for its 
people. More than 75 per cent of the 
Indigenous population in the NWT is 
represented by DII. 

The landmark MOU represents the 
true partnership that exists – one 
of mutual respect and trust, and of 
creating value through enterprise. 

Northland Utilities is a full-service 
electrical company that provides 
retail, distribution, transmission and 
generation services to more than 
11,000 customers in nine NWT 
communities. Approximately 25 per 
cent of Northland Utilities employees 
are Indigenous. The company has a 
number of programs in place to build 
capacity with Indigenous people, such 
as job shadowing and apprenticeship 
training.

ATCO’s near 30-year relationship with 
DII is the longest enduring Indigenous 
partnership in ATCO’s history. ATCO 
has since developed more than 
40 partnerships with Indigenous 
communities across Canada.

37  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

INDIGENOUS PARTNERSHIPS  38

Armed Forces – ATCO helps provide 
summer employment opportunities that 
combine Indigenous cultural teaching 
with military training. The company’s 
continued support of the Siksika 
Nation Community Cadet Corps and 
the Eden Valley Community Cadet 
Corps provides at-risk youth with 
opportunities to engage community 
leaders and receive mentorship during 
a critical time in their lives by teaching 
new skills and showing the importance 
of community service.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT 
ATCO is committed to investing in 
programs designed to promote youth 
leadership in Indigenous communities. 
In 2015, ATCO began new partnerships, 
while continuing to support valuable 
programs across Alberta.

Ski Fit north alberta 
Ski Fit North Alberta, led by two-
time Olympic medallist Beckie Scott, 
promotes healthy, active living to 
Indigenous youth across Alberta 
through cross-country skiing. The 
program travels to many Indigenous 
and remote communities in Alberta that 
ATCO has the privilege to serve. ATCO 
is the title sponsor of the program and 
has engaged the ATCO Blue Flame 
Kitchen to help educate participants on 
the importance of healthy nutrition.

Ski Fit North complements ATCO’s 
longstanding sponsorship of athletic 
events including the Circumpolar 
Northern Games, the North American 
Indigenous Games and the Arctic 
Winter Games. ATCO has also 
sponsored the Alberta Winter and 
Summer Games since 1988.

alberta Future Leaders Program  
The Alberta Future Leaders (AFL) 
program also uses sport and recreation, 
arts and leadership activities to support 
at-risk youth in becoming community 
leaders and positive role models. In 
2015, ATCO announced a three-year 
sponsorship of AFL with the Sucker 
Creek First Nation, where it’s hoped 
that graduates of the program will learn 
the skills required to lead and continue 
these programs.

ATCO has supported AFL for 16 
years, sponsoring Edmonton’s Boyle 
Street Community Services program, 
aimed at providing positive options 
and leadership training to Edmonton’s 
inner-city Indigenous youth. The 
company has also previously 
sponsored partnerships in East Prairie 
Métis Settlement, and the Aseniwuche 
Winewak Nation.

indspire Soaring career conference 
In February 2015, ATCO sponsored 
Indspire Soaring, a career conference 
for Indigenous youth held in Calgary 
that attracted more than 700 
students. Indspire celebrates the 
accomplishments of high achievers 
and introduces them to a wide 
array of career options. ATCO 
employees hosted five workshops 
at the conference, outlining possible 
career paths with the company and 
highlighting ATCO scholarships 
available to Indigenous students.

aboriginal awareness initiatives 
ATCO is committed to celebrating 
the rich cultural legacy and history of 
Indigenous peoples in Canada and 
Australia. Each year, ATCO supports 
and participates in Canada’s National 
Aboriginal Awareness Day celebrations, 
and Australia’s National Aboriginal and 
Islander Week. For the second straight 
year, in 2015 ATCO was pleased to 
sponsor Australia’s National Aboriginal 
and Islander Day Observance 
Committee (NAIDOC) events in the City 
of Kwinana and region. The week-long 
events promote the history, culture and 
achievements of Aboriginal and Torres 
Strait Islander peoples.

ATCO’s Indigenous Partnerships

NORTHWEST
TERRITORIES

Yellowknife

the significant number 
of partnerships atco 
has developed with 
indigenous communities 
is a reflection of 
the respectful and 
transparent way atco 
does business.

Indigenous 
Partnerships

BRITISH 
COLUMBIA

ALBERTA

SASKATCHEWAN

Edmonton

Calgary

Vancouver

39  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

INDIGENOUS PARTNERSHIPS   40

two-time olympic medallist beckie Scott (right) teaches students from tsuu t’ina nation High School the benefits of active 
living and healthy nutrition in the Ski Fit north alberta program. in 2015, atco began sponsoring the program which engages 
indigenous youth across the province in the sport of cross-country skiing. 

ATCO in the 
Community

atco employees deliver 
safety messaging to 
elementary school aged 
children during an ag for 
Life Farm Safety day in 
rimbey, alberta. 

ATCO and its people are committed to 
creating healthy, vibrant communities 
by developing meaningful partnerships 
and providing time, expertise and 
financial support to the organizations 
that help communities thrive.

ATCO EPIC 
Launched in 2006 as a way of unifying 
all ATCO companies’ fundraising efforts 
and magnifying its positive impact, the 
ATCO EPIC (Employees Participating 
in Communities) program has raised 
more than more than $31 million 
for charitable organizations across 
Canada.

Each year, ATCO’s signature, 
employee-led program combines 
fundraising events, ‘Days of Caring’ 
volunteer activities, auctions, friendly 
team competitions and pledges that 
raise funds to support charitable 
organizations across the country.  
Employees can donate to the charities 
of their choice and ATCO matches 
donations to all human health and 
wellness organizations to double the 
support the charity receives.

2015 campaign Highlights 
While many charitable organizations 
have seen donations decrease as a 
result of the economic downturn, ATCO 
employees’ community spirit is alive 
and well. Over the course of the 2015 
campaign, ATCO employees pledged 
to more than 500 charities near and 
dear to their hearts.

During the 14-week campaign, ATCO 
employees enthusiastically participated 
in approximately 150 fundraising and 
volunteering events across Alberta, the 
Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and 
Australia, raising more than $3.6 million 
for charities around the world.

JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT 
The Junior Achievement (JA) program 
is designed to provide high school 
students with practical business 
experience under the hands-on 
guidance of volunteers from the local 
business community. The program 
seeks to inspire and educate young 
Albertans to succeed in the global 
economy by providing them with 
opportunities to experience free 

enterprise, understand business 
and economics, and develop 
entrepreneurial, financial literacy and 
leadership skills.

Fifty-six years ago, ATCO Founder R.D. 
Southern, along with his father S.D. 
Southern, and fellow entrepreneurs 
David E. Mitchell and J.R. McCaig, 
united to bring this program to Alberta. 
The group formed JA Southern 
Alberta’s first board, and under their 
leadership, became a model for the 
program across the country.

Today, ATCO remains committed 
to the JA program, and its belief in 
the boundless potential of young 
Canadians. Every year, ATCO sponsors 
the “Economics for Success Program” 
and the “Company Program” in both 
Calgary and Edmonton, which teach 
thousands of students from Grades 
9 to 12 about the role of business in 
society.

The “Company Program” offers 
students a unique learning experience 
to better understand the risks and 
rewards of starting a business, and how 
to build positive relationships with the 
community. By the end, students have 
the real-world skills and experience 
needed to achieve their dreams of 
becoming entrepreneurs. “Economics 
for Success” teaches students the 
benefits of staying in school, as well 
as learning budgeting skills and what 
potential jobs are available to them.

AG FOR LIFE PARTNERSHIP 
In 2011, ATCO became a Founding 
Member of Ag for Life, a not-for-
profit organization dedicated to 
building a greater understanding and 
appreciation of agriculture and farm 
safety by offering hands-on educational 
programs to youth and adults across 
Alberta.

ATCO remains highly engaged in Ag 
for Life’s Farm Safety Days, focused 
on bringing much-needed safety 
education to young Albertans who 
live on, work at, or visit farms. This 
educational program is an effective way 
to reach young Albertans and to extend 
ATCO’s important safety messaging 
from ATCO Electric’s “Where’s the 
Line?” and ATCO Gas’s “Click Before 
You Dig” safety programs targeted at 
agricultural customers operating large 
equipment or digging in areas in which 
it operates.

Through a continued commitment to 
educating customers and communities 
about the importance of safety, and 
effective partnerships like Ag for Life, 
ATCO hopes to reduce injuries and 
eliminate fatalities on farms across 
Alberta.

ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen  
Schools Program in Australia 
ATCO Gas Australia brings the professional instruction and 
quality programming of the ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen to 
children in Australia through its engaging and interactive 
schools program designed for students aged 10 to 12. The 
program teaches students about the journey of natural gas in 
Western Australia, how to use gas safely around the home, 
how to use gas appliances in the kitchen to cook nutritious 
meals and what actions to take if they smell gas.

Away from the traditional classroom environment, students 
participate in hands-on activities and receive experience with 
natural gas appliances in the company’s new kitchen facility. 
Students also have the opportunity to learn about healthy 
eating while spending time in the alfresco edible garden. This 
well-maintained seasonal kitchen garden enables school 
groups to harvest fresh herbs, vegetables and fruit to use in 
their cooking classes and aligns with ATCO’s philosophy of 
resourcefulness and sustainability.

In Alberta, ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen continues to offer 
educational programs and a diverse range of cooking classes 
for all ages and in 2015, saw more than 9,700 customers 
participate.

41  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

ATCO IN THE COMMUNITY 42

Financial 
Excellence 2015

earnings attributable to Class I and 
Class II Shares in 2015, largely due to 
staff reductions and the associated 
severance costs and impairments of 
certain underperforming assets across 
our organization. Earnings in 2015 
also included $28 million of gains on 
the sales of some operations and the 
positive revaluation of a joint-venture 
investment. The cash proceeds from 
these sales were redeployed to finance 
the Company’s growth initiatives.

The long-term success of ATCO is 
dependent upon our ability to grow 
the business by expanding into new 
markets and into new business lines. 
To achieve this, we are expanding our 
sales and customer focus in all our 
activities. At the same time, we are 
pursuing cost-savings and efficiencies 
in every part of our organization 
to ensure that we deliver the most 
competitive solutions to our customers. 
But I want to make it clear that while 
we have restructured our business 
to become more customer-focused, 
our financial tenets remain the same: 
we are focused on making prudent 
decisions, maintaining our strong 
financial position and creating long-
term investor value.

ATCO’s adjusted earnings, which 
exclude the one-time gains from 
the sales of operations, impairment 
charges and the other items that were 
not in the normal course of business 
were $293 million in 2015, compared 
to $374 million in 2014. Lower adjusted 
earnings in 2015 were in part due 
to lower business activity in the 
Structures & Logistics business unit 
related to weakened capital spending 
in various natural resource sectors in 
North America and Australia. These 
decreases were partially offset by 
additional work at the Wheatstone 
Project in Western Australia, the 
commencement of work at the Site 

brian r. bale
Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

ATCO has achieved significant growth 
over the past decade, driven by a 
buoyant natural resource sector in 
both North America and Australia. 
However, since late 2014, the world has 
been faced with declining mineral and 
oil prices in addition to a continuing 
low natural gas price environment in 
Western Canada. The challenges that 
are impacting many of our customers 
also had an impact on ATCO in 2015. 
ATCO’s earnings attributable to Class I 
and Class II shares were lower in 2015 
compared to 2014.

In late 2015, ATCO undertook a 
transformational change that shifted 
our global business strategy to address 
these challenges. The Company 
has restructured into three Global 
Business Units - Structures & Logistics, 
Electricity and Pipelines & Liquids - that 
are vertically integrated and better able 
to efficiently and effectively respond 
to our customers’ needs. However, 
this transformative restructuring came 
with some costs. The net impact 
was a reduction of $139 million to 

C Clean Energy Project in northeast 
British Columbia and by business-wide 
cost-reduction initiatives.

Decreased adjusted earnings in 
2015 were also due to lower Alberta 
Power Pool prices and the adverse 
earnings impact of several regulatory 
decisions received from the Alberta 
Utilities Commission and the Australian 
Economic Regulation Authority in 2015.

In March 2015, the Alberta Utilities 
Commission released decisions 
on the Generic Cost of Capital and 
Performance Based Regulation Capital 
Tracker proceedings that covered the 
period from the beginning of 2013 to 
the end of 2015. In July 2015, ATCO 
Gas Australia received the Access 
Arrangement decision, covering the 
period from July 2014 to December 
2019. The 2013 to 2015 earnings 
impact that resulted from these 
decisions was recorded in 2015. If the 
prior period impact of these retroactive 
decisions had been recorded in 2013 
and 2014, adjusted earnings in 2015 
would have been $27 million higher 
than the same period last year due 
to the ongoing investment to meet 
the needs of Alberta’s and Australia’s 
utility customers. When these 
retroactive decisions are recorded in 
their correct year, the regulated utility 
2015 normalized adjusted earnings are 
$252 million compared to $225 million 
in 2014.

Regulated Utility Normalized
Adjusted Earnings

$27M higher

$252M

$225M

This three-year plan includes 
$4.1 billion of planned capital 
investment in the regulated utilities. 
The Company also intends to invest 
a further $1.2 billion in long-term 
contracted capital from 2016 to 
2018. Of this $1.2 billion, $1.1 billion 
is planned capital investment in the 
Alberta Powerline’s Fort McMurray 
500 kV Project and approximately 
$100 million is planned capital 
investment in contracted hydrocarbon 
storage and distributed generation in 
Alberta and a natural gas pipeline in 
Mexico.

ATCO also continues to pursue various 
business development opportunities 
with long-term potential, such as 
the Tula cogeneration power plant in 
Mexico, which are not included in these 
capital growth investment estimates.

DIVIDENDS 
The Board of Directors increased the 
quarterly dividends paid per Class I 
and Class II Share for the four quarters 
of 2015 from 21.50 cents per share to 
24.75 cents per share, an increase of 
15 per cent over 2014.

In January 2016, the Board of Directors 
declared a first-quarter dividend of 
28.50 cents per share. That amount 
represents a 15 per cent increase over 
the quarterly dividends per share paid 
in 2015.

The Board of Directors has approved 
an increase in ATCO’s common share 
dividends each year since 1993; a track 
record we are very proud of.

FINANCIAL STRENGTH 
Financial strength is fundamental to 
ATCO’s current and future success. It 
ensures we have the financial capacity 
to fund our existing and future capital 
investments through a combination of 
predictable cash flow from operations, 
cash balances on-hand, committed 
credit facilities and access to the 
capital markets. Financial strength 
enables ATCO to sustain our operations 
and to grow through economic cycles, 
thereby providing long-term financial 
benefits and value creation to you, 
our investors. ATCO is committed to 
maintaining strong investment grade 
credit ratings which allow us access to 
capital markets at competitive rates.

We financed our asset expansion 
through a number of sources in 2015. 
Our most significant source of capital 
was funds generated by operations 
which totalled $1.6 billion in 2015. We 
also issued $650 million in debt and 
$375 million in preferred shares, all at 
very competitive rates.

The Company has a long track record 
of generating reliable and growing 
earnings and dividends over time. 
There is no doubt we face some 
challenging conditions with low 
commodity prices and reduced activity 
levels in some of our markets. However, 
we will tackle these challenges, as we 
always have, with fiscal prudence and a 
long-term focus on creating 
share owner value.

$1.14/share

23-year track record of increasing
common share dividends

CAPITAL INVESTMENT PLANS 
ATCO invested $1,919 million in 
2015 in long-term growth initiatives. 
Investment in the regulated utilities 
and on long-term contracted capital 
assets accounted for $1,754 million or 
92 per cent of capital spending. These 
investments either earn a return under 
a regulatory business model or are 
commercially secured under long-
term contracts. The remaining eight 
per cent of expenditures were mainly 
maintenance capital spread across the 
Company.

regulated & contracted capital 
investment 2015

14%

78%

8%

regulated utility capital

Long-term contracted capital

other

In the 2016 to 2018 period, ATCO 
expects to invest an additional 
$5.3 billion in regulated utility and 
commercially secured capital growth 
projects. This capital investment is 
expected to contribute significant 
earnings and cash flow and create 
long-term value for share owners.

Future Regulated &
Contracted Capital Investments

$2.0B

$1.8B

$1.5B

Long-term 
contracted 
capital

atco gas 
australia

atco Pipelines

atco gas

atco electric
Distribution

atco electric
Transmission

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

93 94 95 96 97 98 99

00

01

02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

43  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

Capital investment is defined as cash used for capital expenditures. It includes additions to property, plant and equipment, intangibles and the company’s 
proportional share of capital expenditures in joint ventures, as well as interest capitalized during construction.

FINANCIAL EXCELLENCE 2015  44

Consolidated Annual Results (1)

Consolidated Operating Summary

(Millions of Canadian dollars, except as indicated) 

2015 

2014   

2013 

2012 

2011

(Millions of Canadian dollars, except as indicated) 

2015 

2014 

2013 

2012 

2010

earningS StateMent
revenues 
earnings attributable to class i and class ii shares  
adjusted earnings (2)

- Structures & Logistics 
- Electricity  
- Pipelines & Liquids 
- Corporate & Other and eliminations  

Adjusted earnings (2) 

baLance SHeet
cash (3)  
total assets 
capitalization

- Bank indebtedness 
- Long-term debt 
- Non-recourse long-term debt 
- Non-controlling interests  
- Share owners’ equity 

Capitalization 

caSH FLoW StateMent
Funds generated by operations (4) 
capital expenditures (5)
- Structures & Logistics 
- Electricity 
- Pipelines & Liquids 
- Corporate & Other & eliminations 

Capital expenditures 

Per SHare data
earnings per share ($) 
dividends paid per share ($) 
equity per share ($) 
class i non-Voting closing share price ($) 
class ii Voting closing share price ($) 

4,131 
154 

4,554 
420 

4,359 
418 

4,012 
370 

3,991
327

27 
171 
101 
(6) 
293 

67 
195 
106 
6 
374 

96 
206 
83 
5 
390 

114 
167 
83 
6 
370 

89
157
72
12
330

799 
19,055 

590 
  17,689 

741 
16,010 

470 
14,055 

755
12,453

1 
7,943 
112 
3,537 
3,356 
14,949 

5 
7,256 
127 
3,112 
3,168 
  13,668 

2 
6,230 
165 
3,153 
2,860 
12,410 

- 
5,352 
186 
2,551 
2,370 
10,459 

-
4,389
378
2,500
2,163
9,430

1,589 

1,786 

1,854 

1,636 

1,514

61 
935 
824 
48 
1,868 

1.34 
 0.99 
 29.18 
 35.70 
 35.50 

91 
1,622 
620 
40 
2,373 

 3.66 
 0.86 
27.51 
 47.66 
47.75 

116 
1,810 
521 
71 
2,518 

 3.64 
0.75 
 24.84 
46.66 
 46.35 

199 
1,767 
488 
33 
2,487 

 3.21 
 0.66 
 20.61 
 40.36 
40.25 

132
939
431
26
1,528

 2.83
 0.57
 18.74
 30.12
 29.66

Full disclosure of all financial information is available on the Sedar website - www.sedar.com.

(1)  Financial results have been prepared in 
accordance with International Financial 
Reporting Standards (IFRS).

(2)  Adjusted earnings are earnings attributable 
to Class I and Class II Shares after adjusting 
for the timing of revenues and expenses 
associated with rate-regulated activities. 
Adjusted earnings also exclude one-time 
gains and losses, significant impairments 

and items that are not in the normal course of 
business or a result of day-to-day operations. 
Descriptions of the adjustments are provided 
in the Segmented Information note of the 
Financial Statements.

(3)  Cash is defined as cash and cash equivalents 

less current bank indebtedness.

(4)  Funds generated by operations is defined 
as cash generated from operations before 

changes in non-cash working capital. This 
measure is not defined by IFRS and may not 
be comparable to similar measures used by 
other companies.

(5)  Includes purchases of property, plant 

and equipment and intangibles, including 
capitalized interest.

Structures & Logistics
  Capital expenditures (1) 
  Workforce housing lease fleet (units in thousands) 
  Workforce housing lease fleet utilization (%) 
  Space rental lease fleet (units in thousands) 
   Space rental lease fleet utilization (%) 

electricity 
  electricity distribution and transmission operations
  Capital expenditures (1) 
  Power lines (thousands of kilometres) 
  Electricity distributed (millions of kilowatt hours) 
  Average annual use per residential customer (kWh) 
  Customers at year-end (thousands) 
  electricity generation operations
   Capital expenditures (1) 
   Generating capacity (megawatts) 
  Generating capacity owned (megawatts) 
  Availability (%) 

Pipelines & Liquids
  natural gas distribution operations (2)
  Capital expenditures (1) 
  Pipelines (thousands of kilometres) 
  Maximum daily demand (terajoules) 
  Natural gas distributed (petajoules) 
  Average annual use per residential customer 

(gigajoules) for ATCO Gas 

  Average annual use per residential customer 

(gigajoules) for ATCO Gas Australia 
  Customers at year-end (thousands) 
  natural gas transmission operations
  Capital expenditures (1) 
  Pipelines (thousands of kilometres) 

natural gas liquids storage and processing operations, 
and industrial water solutions
  Capital expenditures (1) 
  Natural gas processed (mmcf/day) 

- Natural gas liquids extraction (mmcf/day) 
- Natural gas gathering and processing (mmcf/day) 

  Natural gas gathering lines (kilometres) 

61 
3 
51 
13 
68 

91 
3 
77 
13 
75 

116 
3 
83 
13 
77 

199 
3 
86 
13 
81 

132
3
87
19
80

850 
83 
11,832 
7,476 
256 

85 
3,857 
2,462 
93 

411 
54 
2,216 
264 

117 

14 

1,602 
81 
11,600 
7,815 
252 

20 
3,890 
2,479 
95 

1,763 
81 
11,283 
7,743 
248 

47 
4,890 
2,734 
94 

1,732 
76 

916
74
10,974  10,596
7,747
240

7,604 
244 

35 
4,889 
2,743 
90 

23
4,889
2,743
91

371 
54 
2,269 
289 

353 
54 
2,182 
275 

392 
52 
2,253 
275 

307   
51
2,175
259

117 

117 

121 

121

14 

15 

15 

15

1,893 

1,846 

1,802 

1,763 

1,727

363 
9 

50 
187 
178 
9 
645 

194 
9 

147 
9 

87 
9 

112
9

55 
337 
316 
21 
1,016 

21 
376 
340 
36 
1,122 

9 
398 
350 
48 
1,097 

12
393
342
51
1,171

(1)  Includes purchases of property, plant and equipment and intangibles, 

(2)  Includes ATCO Gas Australia, which was acquired on July 29, 2011; 2011 

including capitalized interest.

amounts are for the 5 months of operations.

45  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

CONSOLIDATED OPERATING SUMMARY  46

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
ATCO’s Global Leadership

Directors

ATCO’s Global Leadership

ATCO Officers

robert t. booth, q.c.
Partner, Bennett Jones LLP

denis M. ellard
Corporate Director

c. anthony Fountain 
Chairman of Sellafield Ltd.

Linda a. Heathcott
President & Chief Executive 
Officer, Spruce Meadows Ltd.

Michael r.P. rayfield
Corporate Director

robert J. routs, Phd
Corporate Director

nancy c. Southern
Chair, President & 
Chief Executive Officer

roger J. urwin, Phd, c.b.e.
Corporate Director

executive committee

nancy c. Southern 
Chair, President & 
Chief Executive Officer 

erhard M. Kiefer 
Senior Vice President & 
Chief Administration Officer 

Siegfried W. Kiefer 
President & Chief Operating Officer, 
Canadian Utilities Limited 

brian r. bale 
Senior Vice President & 
Chief Financial Officer

Stephen H. Lockwood 
President & Chief Operating Officer, 
ATCO Structures & Logistics Ltd. 

Settimio F. Policicchio 
Managing Director, Shared Services

carson J. ackroyd 
Vice President, Marketing 
& Communications

anthony L. Maher 
Vice President, Controller 

clinton g. Warkentin 
Vice President, Finance & Risk

corporate office

carole M.d. Field 
Vice President, Pension and Benefits & 
Human Resources Information Systems

carol gear 
Corporate Secretary 

robert c. neumann 
Vice President, Internal Audit

alan M. Skiffington 
Vice President & 
Chief Information Officer

Managing directors, Presidents and 
Senior executives of operating Subsidiaries

roberta L. Lambright 
Managing Director & Chief Operating 
Officer, ATCO Australia 

J.d. Patrick creaghan 
President, ATCO Energy Solutions 

george J. Lidgett 
Managing Director, Pipelines & Liquids 

Wayne K. Stensby 
Managing Director, Electricity 

Paul g. goguen 
Senior Vice President & General 
Manager, ATCO Electric Transmission 

barry L. goy 
Senior Vice President & General 
Manager, ATCO Electric Distribution

george opocensky 
President, ATCO Power 

boris i. rassin 
President, 
ATCO Sustainable Communities

d. Jason Sharpe 
Senior Vice President & General 
Manager, ATCO Pipelines 

Susan r. Werth
Corporate Director

charles W. Wlson
Lead Director

47  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

OFFICERS  48

 
 
 
ATCO’s Beautiful 
Alberta Heritage

In recognition of its beautiful Alberta 
heritage, ATCO has featured scenes of 
Alberta in annual reports since 1990. 

northern lights over 
the elbow river, west 
of calgary, alberta. 

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

49  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT

General 
Information

INCORPORATION

REGISTRAR & TRANSFER AGENT

ATCO Ltd. was incorporated under the 
laws of the Province of Alberta on 
August 31, 1962.

ANNUAL MEETING

The Annual Meeting of Share Owners 
will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, 
May 11, 2016, at The Fairmont Palliser 
Hotel, 133 - 9 Avenue S.W., 
Calgary, AB.

AUDITORS

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP 
Calgary, AB

LEGAL COUNSEL

Bennett Jones LLP 
Calgary, AB

STOCK EXCHANGE LISTINGS

Class I Non-Voting Shares 
Symbol ACO.X

Class II Voting Shares 
Symbol ACO.Y

Listing: The Toronto Stock Exchange

INVESTOR RELATIONS

 Email: investorrelations@atco.com 
Telephone: 403-292-7500 
Fax: 403-292-7532

Mailing Address: 
c/o ATCO Group Investor Relations 
1500, 909 - 11 Avenue S.W. 
Calgary, AB 
Canada T2R 1N6

Class I Non-Voting and 
Class II Voting Shares

CST Trust Company 
Calgary/Montreal/Toronto/Vancouver

Telephone: 
8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. ET 
Monday - Friday 
Toll-Free in North America: 
1-800-387-0825 

Outside of North America: 
1-416-682-3860

Fax in North America: 
1-888-249-6189

Fax Outside of North America: 
1-514-985-8846

www.canstockta.com

Mailing Address: 
CST Trust Company 
P.O. Box 700 
Station B  
Montreal, QC 
Canada  H3B 3K3

FSc to coMe 
at PreSS tiMe

PRINTED IN CANADA

GENERAL INFORMATION  50

700, 909 - 11 avenue S.W., calgary, alberta t2r 1n6

telephone 403-292-7500

Fax 403-292-7623

www.atco.com

51  2015 ATCO ANNUAL REPORT