Ottawa Paying $1 Billion To Clean Alberta's Abandoned Wells; How About $100 Billion For Tar Sands?
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Is there a chance taxpayers will be on the hook for oilsands cleanup?
That’s the elephant in the room. The costs to seal and clean up conventional oil infrastructure — including inactive and orphan wells — across the province have increasingly fallen to taxpayers.
In recent years, the province’s Orphan Well Association has received more than half a billion in loans from the provincial and federal governments. And as part of the pandemic economic stimulus package, $1 billion in taxpayer money has been earmarked for the cleanup of wells still owned by companies in Alberta. Then there are the land rents left unpaid by delinquent companies and ultimately paid by taxpayers. The unpaid taxes. The list goes on.
A lot hinges on the price of oil (or gas) and whether companies have any money leftover when wells run dry, or the product is no longer as profitable. That has left some wondering if the liabilities in the oilsands are also at risk of being shouldered by the public. “A greater and greater amount of these environmental liabilities that we’re becoming aware of are not going to fall on the people responsible for creating them in the first place,” Toulch told The Narwhal.
With so little held in security for the cleanup of oilsands mines, there are concerns that these liabilities — like some in the conventional oil sector — may end up foisted on to the public, especially if the industry continues to be beleaguered with low oil prices. “I’m 98 per cent confident that they will become public liabilities,” Olszynski told The Narwhal. “It’s just hard to imagine that we’re ever going to get to a point of profitability with these companies.” “I don’t see it. I don’t see how it’s possible at this point for this not to become [a public liability].”
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https://thenarwhal.ca/ottawa-paying-clean-up-albertas-inactive-wells-oilsands-next/
