Alberta Energy Regulator to ask tougher questions of oil well applicants
EDMONTON — Alberta’s energy regulator wants to keep bad operators out of the oilpatch to reduce the ballooning number of bankrupt companies who have walked away from unprofitable wells.
“We will be requiring more information at the time a person or a company applies for licence eligibility,” Jim Ellis, head of the Alberta Energy Regulator, said Wednesday. “We’ll have more discretion to deny licence applications where the applicant poses a risk to the public or to the environment.”
Alberta has been dealing with a surge of abandoned wells since a 2016 court ruling allowed a bankruptcy trustee to cut unprofitable wells loose from the tally of company assets. A Queen’s Bench judge and the Alberta Court of Appeal have found that federal bankruptcy law supercedes provincial environmental rules.
That case is now before the Supreme Court.