{"id":67129,"date":"2025-10-09T12:11:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T19:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/energi.media\/?p=67129"},"modified":"2025-10-09T12:11:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T19:11:38","slug":"alberta-orphaned-wells-strategy-faces-pushback-from-residents-municipalities-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energi.media\/news\/alberta-orphaned-wells-strategy-faces-pushback-from-residents-municipalities-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta orphaned wells strategy faces pushback from residents, municipalities, experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was published by The Energy Mix<\/a> on Oct. 8, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Jody MacPherson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Pushback is growing among Alberta municipalities, landowners, and concerned residents who say the province is pressing ahead with a regulatory system that lets oil and gas companies dodge taxes, skip rent, and leave orphaned wells behind.<\/p>\n

Alberta\u2019s proposed Mature Asset Strategy (MAS), a plan to manage aging oil and gas assets including well closure and cleanup, falls short on two key fronts, said Bill Heidecker, president of the Alberta Surface Rights Federation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne, there\u2019s never been a back-end date for having to clean up these wells once they\u2019re no longer producing,\u201d he told a recent virtual town hall. Based on existing rules, he added, companies have decided it\u2019s easier to pay a few thousand dollars a year to leave inactive wells sitting, rather than spend the hundreds of thousands it would take to clean them up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey never should have been allowed to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, companies do not allocate funds to clean up their wells in the first place, Heidecker added. Some oil producers\u00a0trade their liabilities<\/a>\u00a0to weaker companies that also lack the means to cover cleanup costs.<\/p>\n

The province must set clear deadlines for site cleanups and start collecting money from companies to ensure the work gets done. That\u2019s missing from the proposed MAS, he said.<\/p>\n

Coalition Warns of \u2018Rigged Plan\u2019<\/h2>\n

The Coalition For Responsible Energy (C4RE), an alliance of environmental, Indigenous rights, and civil society groups, is\u00a0warning<\/a>\u00a0in a new campaign that the MAS is a \u201crigged plan.\u201d They say its recommendations,\u00a0framed by oil veteran David Yager<\/a>, will leave everyday Albertans paying for well cleanup costs.<\/p>\n

About 95 kilometres southwest of Edmonton, in the village of Warburg, the Alberta energy minister\u2019s chief of staff Vitor Marciano was jeered and interrupted when he defended the MAS at a town hall, The Narwhal\u00a0reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Marciano warned attendees that the abandoned well problem would worsen before it improves.<\/p>\n

\u201cFolks, companies are going to go down, and more companies are going to go down over the next few years than have gone down in the past,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Also present was MAS report author Yager, who serves as special advisor to Premier Danielle Smith. He referred to the cleanup problem as \u201cthe giant stinking pile of sh*t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a mess. It always has been a mess,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

C4RE wants the oil and gas industry held responsible for their \u201cmess\u201d and has\u00a0launched a website<\/a>, planned a series of town halls, and initiated a letter writing campaign to mobilize Albertans. Upcoming town halls are planned in Falher and Vegreville, with additional virtual meetings in October.<\/p>\n

At C4RE\u2019s Oct. 2 online meeting, 175 people attended, including Marciano, who\u00a0has been telling Albertans<\/a>\u00a0that 20 of the 21 MAS recommendations have been approved and will be proceeding this fall.<\/p>\n

C4RE has formally challenged the Alberta Energy Regulator\u2019s decision on the\u00a0levy<\/a>\u00a0amount oil companies must pay for their orphaned wells and\u00a0filed<\/a>\u00a0an ethics complaint against Yager, alleging conflict of interest due to his roles as an AER board member, an oil and gas industry consultant, and an advisor to Smith. The group says 1,700 people have written to the Alberta ethics commissioner asking for an investigation.<\/p>\n

Municipal Concerns and Unpaid Taxes<\/h2>\n

Kara Westerlund, president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA), which was consulted on the MAS, told\u00a0The Energy Mix<\/em>\u00a0she is unclear what the next steps are, how RMA will be engaged, and how the plan will be implemented.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel that none of the recommendations should be implemented without a focused specific engagement, and a sharing of information on the impacts of each of the recommendations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The RMA, which represents 69 counties and municipal districts in Alberta, has\u00a0<\/a>released<\/a>\u00a0data\u00a0showing<\/a>\u00a0at least $253.9 million of municipal property taxes that have gone unpaid by oil and gas companies.<\/p>\n

There have been no updates from Energy and Minerals Minister Brian Jean, and his press secretary did not respond to emailed questions from\u00a0The Mix<\/em>\u00a0about the MAS\u2019s progress. Many of the recommendations require further working groups and the drafting of new legislation.<\/p>\n

Oil and gas companies also often fail to pay rent to landowners. A freedom of information\u00a0request\u00a0<\/a>by The Narwhal found that taxpayers compensated landowners through the Land and Property Rights Tribunal to the tune of C$30 million in 2024, but only $167,000, less than 0.5 per cent, was recovered from delinquent companies.<\/p>\n

Legal and Expert Critiques<\/h2>\n

Three lawyers who\u2019ve been tracking Alberta\u2019s ballooning liability problem for years\u00a0write<\/a>\u00a0in a new University of Calgary law faculty blog post that the regulatory framework has three \u201cchronic deficiencies\u201d: A lack of transparency that impairs public accountability; too much reliance on discretionary power; and too much industry influence in the design of regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt contains a few useful (and surprising) admissions and a couple potentially promising ideas, but on the whole it focuses on the wrong problems and ultimately promotes deregulation and thinly-disguised new government assistance for the oil and gas industry,\u201d they write. \u201cIt obfuscates the real issues rather than illuminating them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawyers call for a full public inquiry into \u201cAlberta\u2019s unfunded closure liability problem\u201d to prevent costs from being passed to the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the trouble is that what\u2019s happening is not illegal, it\u2019s how the system is set up,\u201d Ecojustice lawyer Susanne Calabrese told C4RE\u2019s virtual town hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AER approves transfer applications from solvent companies that don\u2019t have any assets and that can\u2019t clean this up,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s no timeline for cleaning up wells the way the law is set up, there\u2019s no security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Norm Campbell of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) added that the exact toxins in oil and gas wells are under-researched, affecting humans and wildlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very serious oversight,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a general rule, there\u2019s substantive increases in cancers and heart attacks, strokes, dementia, and birth defects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are major causes of death and disability and rates may be going up by 20 per cent in some of the people living close to these wells.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lack of Definition<\/h2>\n

Critics point out that Yager doesn\u2019t define \u201cmature asset\u201d, a new term for the regulator. There is no tracking of mature assets under that terminology. A search for the phrase on AER\u2019s website returned only two results from July 2025, one in Yager\u2019s biography and the other mentioned by Smith in the AER annual report.<\/p>\n

The closest Yager comes to\u00a0providing<\/a>\u00a0a definition is at the beginning of the 52-page document, where he explains that mature assets are \u201cwells that are past or near the end of their production lifespan.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a new mandate letter\u00a0released<\/a>\u00a0Oct. 2, Alberta\u2019s premier instructed Jean to coordinate the implementation of the strategy, as well as the AER\u2019s work plan, and a new Liability Management Framework \u201cto ensure the highest global competitiveness in oil and gas development with the strong environmental stewardship Albertans expect.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This article was published by The Energy Mix on Oct. 8, 2025. 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