Quote:
Originally Posted by mogg
Maybe he’s a really nice guy. I’m not in a position to say. But I do know his old company is sitting on an awful lot of orphan wells. I know the UCP isn’t keen on compelling such companies to do the remediation work, and has (along with the federal government) considered using tax dollars, yours and mine, to fund the work instead. I know the AER doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being forthcoming, hence the recent $500M lawsuit brought by the Athabaska Chipewyan First Nation. I also know the AER hasn’t been especially good at monitoring. Not to mention that the UCP has a habit of exerting control over agencies that previously had some degree of independence. Not to mention that the UCP seems to see itself as the champion and ambassador of fossil fuel industries (not energy, just fossil fuels). So for me this isn’t speculation. It’s about patterns of behaviour. At this point I’m not willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. |
Yeah fair, I think this is all super reasonable. I do think Albertans have every right to wonder wtf is going on with orphan wells. When you buy multiple companies, which Strathcona did, you end up with a pile of all these old sites that have been not cleaned up yet rolling forward from all the acquisitions over time. People should actually be relatively happy that Strathcona did this because they are financially viable and healthy, capable of long term clean up efforts. Better than say other companies that are still able to pass the LLR test but maybe not as strong.
I’m not an expert, but I think the AER prioritizes the high and medium risk wells and those have clear criteria on when to stabilize / abandon and set in motion the clean up efforts but as you can imagine there’s tons of well sites that are deemed “low risk” (because they are).
I think Alberta is getting better at enforcement and over time should be on a path to catch up theoretically but could take awhile and I totally get why people would be leery of the AER and whether or not to trust it as a regulator. People should keep in mind that if the AER went full tilt then businesses would go belly up immediately and then things really won’t be cleaned up as companies liquidate and go insolvent. That’s a good way to solidify Albertans having to pay for the cleanup if things aren’t reasonably measured in application.