5 ms·

I'm cool with cleanup costs up front... Can Alberta apply it to oil and gas companies too?

• izend 11d ago
  There is a very underfunded https://www.orphanwell.ca/ https://www.orphanwell.ca/ program but I agree with your point.
• dismalaf 11d ago
  They probably should increase the levies. On the other hand, the province does get $20 billion+ in direct oil revenue per year (royalties), so it's not like oil companies are just straight up robbing us.
  • cmrdporcupine 11d ago
    Except that revenue doesn't go towards well cleanup. Not really. Also it goes up and down drastically. After Trump is finished making a mess in Hormuz, the number will go down again, and Alberta finance ministers will go back to ranting about reigning in excessive spending.
    • dismalaf 11d ago
      > Except that revenue doesn't go towards well cleanup Well it's a hard problem because companies that are still in business clean up their own wells. Only bankrupt companies leave orphan wells. So guesstimating the costs is difficult. Yes there should be more planning perhaps, but if it does have to come out of general revenue it's still a net win.
      • cmrdporcupine 11d ago
        I mean you're kinda leaving out the part where companies deliberately transfer assets then go out of business to avoid cleaning up their wells. That's often how they've become orphaned. Conventional oil is legacy at this point in Alberta though -- the broader concern is how much we can expect oil sands facilities to be properly decommissioned and closed up once it becomes uneconomical to sell the stuff in 30-40 years. That has a rather more concerning footprint.