News reports and rumours are circulating that Alberta taxpayers will be on the multi-billion-dollar hook for cleaning up old oil and gas infrastructure — wells, pipelines, and facilities — that have accumulated over the decades.
A leaked government document suggests creating taxpayer-backed entities to acquire and reclaim wells, despite existing laws mandating that companies handle their own cleanup.
Alberta's Orphan Well Association is under considerable strain.
The association is a not-for-profit organization established to manage the cleanup of "orphan" oil and gas infrastructure left behind when energy companies go bankrupt or are otherwise unable to fulfill their reclamation obligations.
Alberta’s Energy Minister, Brian Jean, has publicly stated that public funds will not be used, contradicting the report’s implications. This has fuelled debate, with critics arguing it shifts a massive financial burden — estimated at over $30 billion — onto taxpayers, while rural leaders and industry watchers express scepticism and demand accountability from polluters.
The tension highlights ongoing friction between industry obligations and government policy in addressing the province’s ageing energy infrastructure.
On Wednesday, the Western Standard asked Premier Danielle Smith about NDP rumours that taxpayers will be on the hook for cleanup.
“They’re wrong,” she said in a media scrum on Wednesday. “One of the things you’ll know about me is I sometimes come up with ideas. People say, don’t do that, and then I don’t do that. So, they think that an idea I floated three years ago is the idea that’s going to be released on April 3. It’s not.”
“And so you’ll see the report on April 3, and it’s a whole menu of different proposals that come from the rural associations, landowner groups, and various others. So, I think I kind of bust out of their paradigm. They may not be able to change their opinion and move in a different direction. I can. That’s what we’re doing. We’re doing something completely different.”