• Upstream
  • Pipelines & Transport
  • Downstream
Oil&Gas Advancement
  • Home
  • News
    Indonesia Targets 1M Barrels

    Indonesia Targets 1M Barrels of Oil Production by 2029

    UK Launches the Largest Oil

    UK Launches the Largest Oil and Gas Producer, Adura

    Canadas Fossil Fuel Industry

    Canada’s Fossil Fuel Industry Ties to Pension Boards Eyed

    North Sea Oil and Gas

    North Sea Oil and Gas Production – A Privilege for UK

    Oil Prices Dipped as US Declared Israel and Iran Ceasefire

    Oil Prices Dipped as US Declared Israel and Iran Ceasefire

    Shutting Strait of Hormuz May Affect Mainland Asia

    Shutting Strait of Hormuz May Affect Mainland Asia

    Trump Urges Oil Producers to Avoid Increasing Oil Prices

    Trump Urges Oil Producers to Avoid Increasing Oil Prices

    Europe Boosts Liquefied

    Europe Boosts Liquefied Natural Gas Resilience Amid Tension

    Middle East giants expands

    Middle East giants expands Global LNG market

  • Projects
    South Africa Proposes

    South Africa Proposes US LNG Purchase Deal for 10 Years

    Alaska LNG

    Glenfarne Announces Over $115 Billion of Strategic Partner Interest for Alaska LNG

    UAE Energy Investments in the US

    UAE Energy Investments in the US to Reach $440B by 2035

    agreements with US companies

    Aramco announces 34 MoUs and agreements with US companies

    Future-proofing-gas-sector

    Future-proofing Gas Sector for Efficiency and Sustainability

    South-Africa-Oil-and-Gas-Exploration

    South Africa Speeding-up its Oil and Gas Exploration

    Upstream-Exploration

    High-Risk Geographies in Upstream Exploration and Challenges

    Offshore-Drilling

    Innovations Driving the Future of Offshore Drilling

    Gato-do-Mato

    Shell Approves Gato do Mato Project in Brazil

  • Whitepapers

    OGA 2017 Post Show Report

    US Polyethylene Export Market Report 2017-2020

    US Polyethylene Export Market Report 2017-2020

    Embedded SSD Flash Management

    Enterprise SSD: More Than Just a New Kind of Hard Drive

    Efficiency, Visibility and Reliability Keys to lower costs and greater profitability in oil and gas operations

    Don’t Miss the Unconventional Resource Revolution’s Next Wave

    Better Safety, Better Business: Maintain Compliance and Drive Revenue: Put All of Your Data to Work

    Breaking the Application Barrier: Why Data is the Most Valuable Asset in the Oil and Gas Industry

    Drilling Optimization Through Advanced Analytics Using Historical and Real-Time Data

  • Press Releases
    Alaska LNG

    Glenfarne Announces Over $115 Billion of Strategic Partner Interest for Alaska LNG

    agreements with US companies

    Aramco announces 34 MoUs and agreements with US companies

    Sinopec Sets New Vertical Well Depth

    Sinopec Sets New Vertical Well Depth Record of 5,300 Meters

    Jubail Asset Integrity

    Jubail to Host the 3rd Asset Integrity and Process Safety Conference & Exhibition 2025

    IPTC 2025 Launched: Driving Innovation, Sustainability, and Excellence in Energy

    Ocean Business announces exhibitor list for 2025 show

    Ocean Business 2025 conference programme announced

    Engine No. 1, Chevron And GE Vernova To Power U.S. Data Centers

    Baker Hughes Secures Significant Gas Technology Order for Third Expansion Phase of Aramco’s Jafurah Gas Field

  • Market Reports
    HDPE Market in Oil and Gas

    HDPE Market in Oil and Gas: Trends and Global Forecast

    Top 5 Oil and Gas Sector Trends that are Active in 2025

    Oil-and-Gas-Analytics

    Oil and Gas Analytics Market Growth Trends and Forecast

    Gas-Transportation

    Transport Capacity – Key to Gas Sector Growth in India

    Offshore-Drilling

    Namibia Showcases its Offshore Drilling Activities

    Global-Oil

    Demand for Global Oil to Grow to Almost 104 mb/d in 2025

    ExxonMobil to sell Norway upstream operations for $4.5 billion

    ExxonMobil completes acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources

    Ithaca Energy unit to acquire Chevron’s Central North Sea assets

    ExxonMobil doubles Permian footprint after finalizing Pioneer acquisition

    CNOOC

    Petrobras achieves second highest profit in history in 2023: R$ 124.6 billion

  • Events
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    Indonesia Targets 1M Barrels

    Indonesia Targets 1M Barrels of Oil Production by 2029

    UK Launches the Largest Oil

    UK Launches the Largest Oil and Gas Producer, Adura

    Canadas Fossil Fuel Industry

    Canada’s Fossil Fuel Industry Ties to Pension Boards Eyed

    North Sea Oil and Gas

    North Sea Oil and Gas Production – A Privilege for UK

    Oil Prices Dipped as US Declared Israel and Iran Ceasefire

    Oil Prices Dipped as US Declared Israel and Iran Ceasefire

    Shutting Strait of Hormuz May Affect Mainland Asia

    Shutting Strait of Hormuz May Affect Mainland Asia

    Trump Urges Oil Producers to Avoid Increasing Oil Prices

    Trump Urges Oil Producers to Avoid Increasing Oil Prices

    Europe Boosts Liquefied

    Europe Boosts Liquefied Natural Gas Resilience Amid Tension

    Middle East giants expands

    Middle East giants expands Global LNG market

  • Projects
    South Africa Proposes

    South Africa Proposes US LNG Purchase Deal for 10 Years

    Alaska LNG

    Glenfarne Announces Over $115 Billion of Strategic Partner Interest for Alaska LNG

    UAE Energy Investments in the US

    UAE Energy Investments in the US to Reach $440B by 2035

    agreements with US companies

    Aramco announces 34 MoUs and agreements with US companies

    Future-proofing-gas-sector

    Future-proofing Gas Sector for Efficiency and Sustainability

    South-Africa-Oil-and-Gas-Exploration

    South Africa Speeding-up its Oil and Gas Exploration

    Upstream-Exploration

    High-Risk Geographies in Upstream Exploration and Challenges

    Offshore-Drilling

    Innovations Driving the Future of Offshore Drilling

    Gato-do-Mato

    Shell Approves Gato do Mato Project in Brazil

  • Whitepapers

    OGA 2017 Post Show Report

    US Polyethylene Export Market Report 2017-2020

    US Polyethylene Export Market Report 2017-2020

    Embedded SSD Flash Management

    Enterprise SSD: More Than Just a New Kind of Hard Drive

    Efficiency, Visibility and Reliability Keys to lower costs and greater profitability in oil and gas operations

    Don’t Miss the Unconventional Resource Revolution’s Next Wave

    Better Safety, Better Business: Maintain Compliance and Drive Revenue: Put All of Your Data to Work

    Breaking the Application Barrier: Why Data is the Most Valuable Asset in the Oil and Gas Industry

    Drilling Optimization Through Advanced Analytics Using Historical and Real-Time Data

  • Press Releases
    Alaska LNG

    Glenfarne Announces Over $115 Billion of Strategic Partner Interest for Alaska LNG

    agreements with US companies

    Aramco announces 34 MoUs and agreements with US companies

    Sinopec Sets New Vertical Well Depth

    Sinopec Sets New Vertical Well Depth Record of 5,300 Meters

    Jubail Asset Integrity

    Jubail to Host the 3rd Asset Integrity and Process Safety Conference & Exhibition 2025

    IPTC 2025 Launched: Driving Innovation, Sustainability, and Excellence in Energy

    Ocean Business announces exhibitor list for 2025 show

    Ocean Business 2025 conference programme announced

    Engine No. 1, Chevron And GE Vernova To Power U.S. Data Centers

    Baker Hughes Secures Significant Gas Technology Order for Third Expansion Phase of Aramco’s Jafurah Gas Field

  • Market Reports
    HDPE Market in Oil and Gas

    HDPE Market in Oil and Gas: Trends and Global Forecast

    Top 5 Oil and Gas Sector Trends that are Active in 2025

    Oil-and-Gas-Analytics

    Oil and Gas Analytics Market Growth Trends and Forecast

    Gas-Transportation

    Transport Capacity – Key to Gas Sector Growth in India

    Offshore-Drilling

    Namibia Showcases its Offshore Drilling Activities

    Global-Oil

    Demand for Global Oil to Grow to Almost 104 mb/d in 2025

    ExxonMobil to sell Norway upstream operations for $4.5 billion

    ExxonMobil completes acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources

    Ithaca Energy unit to acquire Chevron’s Central North Sea assets

    ExxonMobil doubles Permian footprint after finalizing Pioneer acquisition

    CNOOC

    Petrobras achieves second highest profit in history in 2023: R$ 124.6 billion

  • Events
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Oil&Gas Advancement
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Alberta overhauls system to clean up old oil and gas wells, with 90,000 sitting idle

venkat by venkat
July 30, 2020
in News
0
Sweden’s Tethys Oil signs exploration and production agreement for Omani block

Note* - All images used are for editorial and illustrative purposes only and may not originate from the original news provider or associated company.

The Alberta government is revamping how it regulates oil and gas producers in an attempt to start addressing the province’s swelling inventory of inactive oil and gas wells.

The biggest change will be introducing a requirement for companies to spend a minimum amount of money every year toward cleanup of oil wells, pipelines and facilities.

Alberta has more than 90,000 inactive wells, in addition to 73,000 abandoned wells that have been dismantled but not fully reclaimed. The estimated cost of cleanup varies greatly but is considered to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

The government will formally announce the new program on Thursday. Many experts are welcoming the changes, even though it may not result in companies having to spend more money on reclamation work.

Energy Minister Sonya Savage is hopeful the new annual targets will help to address the problem.

“It’s like paying down a mortgage. You’ve got a target and every year you’re chipping away at it, paying it down and eventually you’ll have that mortgage paid off. That’s what the inventory reduction and the requirement for annual spending targets will do,” she said in an interview.

Savage said companies may be required to spend at least four per cent of the estimated cost of their inactive wells, which would increase over time.

Still, the exact percentage is still to be determined and it’s not clear whether there will be any enforcement, which will be the responsibility of the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER).

“We’ll work with industry to make sure they can reach those targets. You can’t be setting targets too high that they can’t meet. That’s not helpful for anyone,” she said.

“The AER will work on what kind of feasible penalties, if any, there would be. But we’re telling them these [spending targets] need to be mandatory.”

The provincial government will give the regulator extra powers to gauge the financial health of companies, with the goal of intervening earlier when producers begin to struggle, which raises the risk that their cleanup liabilities may not be addressed.
Alberta has about 160,000 abandoned and inactive wells throughout the province. (CBC)

That’s a good approach, according to Tristan Goodman, president of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, which represents small- and medium-sized oil and gas producers. He worked at the AER several years ago.

“As a former regulator, what you’re looking for there is to understand the financial position of those companies and how to make sure that the companies know the regulator is paying greater attention to them.”

Goodman said the finer details of the changes will be important, but in general, he supports the overhaul of the program.

At this point, he said, it is not clear whether there will be an added financial burden on industry, depending on how much individual companies are already spending on cleanup.

“I think in some cases there could be. I think that is acceptable,” he said.

“The best outcome … is to make sure companies are consistently spending and consistently reclaiming as they go, and when that doesn’t happen, that’s when you get into a situation where you do have a potential broader problem.”

Suncor CEO encouraged by Trans Mountain pipeline, less sure of Keystone XL’s completion

Regardless of COVID, the outlook for the oilsands gets dimmer year after year

To this point, Alberta has relied on a liability management system that is supposed to make sure companies are financially healthy enough to pay for cleanup later on.

If a company’s estimated assets fall below the cost of its environmental liabilities, the AER can collect a security deposit.

But the regulator has been using a formula based on out-of-date commodity prices that inflated the assets of companies. As a result, companies were not asked to put down large enough security deposits for future cleanup.

The energy minister is describing the changes as a bold step after decades of inaction by former governments, even as the problem grew larger year after year.

Previous Post

Praj, ARAI to jointly develop application technology for green fuels

Next Post

Pemex to increase oil and gas production in H2 with 20 new exploration wells

Related Posts

Indonesia Targets 1M Barrels
News

Indonesia Targets 1M Barrels of Oil Production by 2029

June 30, 2025
UK Launches the Largest Oil
News

UK Launches the Largest Oil and Gas Producer, Adura

June 30, 2025
Canadas Fossil Fuel Industry
News

Canada’s Fossil Fuel Industry Ties to Pension Boards Eyed

June 30, 2025
North Sea Oil and Gas
News

North Sea Oil and Gas Production – A Privilege for UK

June 28, 2025
Oil Prices Dipped as US Declared Israel and Iran Ceasefire
News

Oil Prices Dipped as US Declared Israel and Iran Ceasefire

June 25, 2025
Shutting Strait of Hormuz May Affect Mainland Asia
News

Shutting Strait of Hormuz May Affect Mainland Asia

June 24, 2025
Next Post
CNPC puts into operation of its new production lines for surgical masks

Pemex to increase oil and gas production in H2 with 20 new exploration wells

About Us

Oil and Gas Advancement is a leading information centric website providing latest information and happenings within the industry. Featuring the latest news and developments within the Upstream, Midstream and Downstream Industries. Oil and Gas Advancement runs with an objective to provide a one stop knowledge driven content to our reader and subscribers in various forms like news, projects, upcoming events.

Subscribe Us

Resources

  • Advertise with us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter Archive
  • Download Mediapack

System

  • Search
  • Site Map
  • RSS Feed
  • Upstream
  • Pipelines & Transport
  • Downstream

© 2018 Copyright Valuemediaservices 2018 All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Projects
  • Whitepapers
  • Press Releases
  • Market Reports
  • Events
  • Contact Us

© 2018 Copyright Valuemediaservices 2018 All rights reserved.