Author: Drew Yewchuk Page 9 of 19

B.A. (UAlberta) J.D. (UCalgary) LLM (U.B.C.) Drew was a full-time staff lawyer with the University of Calgary's Public Interest Law Clinic from 2018-2022. He is now an PhD student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law. His research focuses on administrative secrecy, access to information law, species at risk, resource law, and environmental liabilities.

Polluter Pays Principle at Risk: Auditor General Finds Alberta’s Oil and Gas Liability Regime Still Badly Deficient

By Drew Yewchuk

On March 31, 2023

In Oil & Gas

Regulatory Documents Commented on: Auditor General of Alberta, “Liability Management of (Non-Oil Sands) Oil and Gas Infrastructure”, March 2023

By: Drew Yewchuk, Shaun Fluker, and Martin Olszynski

PDF Version: Polluter Pays Principle at Risk: Auditor General Finds Alberta’s Oil and Gas Liability Regime Still Badly Deficient

Late last week, the Auditor General of Alberta released a scathing report that concludes that, notwithstanding some ongoing reforms, the management and regulation of end-of-life oil and gas liabilities by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) remains seriously deficient in several key areas. This assessment of the AER is one of four components of the Auditor General’s March 2023 report, and is set out as Section 2 Liability Management of (Non-Oil Sands) Oil and Gas Infrastructure (AG AER Report). The AG AER Report audited AER operations to assess (1) whether the AER’s current liability management system effectively mitigated the risks associated with the closure of oil and gas infrastructure and (2) whether the AER appropriately identified the risks and gaps in the previous liability management system and prepared an implementation plan for changes to effectively mitigate those risks and gaps. This comment focuses on the findings that the AER’s oil and gas liability management regime remains deficient in key areas.

Updates to the Oil and Gas Liability Management Framework: The New Closure Nomination and The Renamed Closure Quotas

By Drew Yewchuk

On March 22, 2023

In Oil & Gas

Regulatory Documents Commented on: Directive 088: Licensee Life-Cycle Management (February 2023) and Manual 23: Licensee Life-Cycle Management (February 2023)

By: Drew Yewchuk

PDF Version: Updates to the Oil and Gas Liability Management Framework: The New Closure Nomination and The Renamed Closure Quotas

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) continues to work towards implementing the Government of Alberta’s new Liability Management Framework. This post goes into the details of this implementation, on the assumption the reader is familiar with the ongoing reforms. For some background, see ABlawg’s post from February 2021 here, and my 8 November 2022 post. This post covers the February 2023 updates from the AER: a new Directive 088: Licensee Life-Cycle Management, a new Manual 23: Licensee Life-Cycle Management, responses to an engagement survey on Directive 088, and the Fall 2022 Engagement Session Q&A on Closure Nomination. The AER also released a new explanatory video.

The Alberta Energy Regulator and the Disclosure Without Delay Rule in FOIP

By Drew Yewchuk

On March 6, 2023

In Energy, Privacy

By: Drew Yewchuk

PDF Version: The Alberta Energy Regulator and the Disclosure Without Delay Rule in FOIP

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has been aware that industrial effluent has been seeping from a tailings pit at Imperial’s Kearl oilsands mine since May 2022. (They should not be called tailings ‘ponds’ – they may be pits or lakes, but ‘pond’ implies they are small, which they absolutely are not). The AER chose to make this information public on February 4, 2023, when an estimated 5,300 cubic meters of “[s]torage pond overflowed off lease” and the AER began investigating Imperial for “[f]ailure to comply with conditions of an approval and release of industrial watewater [sic] from an unapproved location” (AER compliance dashboard, incident number 20230311 and investigation number 2023-009).

Fighting Over History at a Special Meeting of the Law Society of Alberta

By Drew Yewchuk

On February 16, 2023

In Announcements, Legal Education

By: Drew Yewchuk

Commented on: Resolution on Rule 67.4 Defeated at The Special Meeting of the Law Society of Alberta held February 6, 2023

PDF Version: Fighting Over History at a Special Meeting of the Law Society of Alberta

This post describes the procedure and results of the Special Meeting of the Law Society of Alberta held on Monday February 6, 2023, and then comments on what it all meant. The purpose of the special meeting was described on ABlawg in a previous post by Koren Lightning-Earle, Hadley Friedland, Anna Lund, Sarah N Kriekle, Heather (Hero) Laird here, and I refer readers needing background on the Resolution, and the purpose of the Special Meeting, to their post. I attended the special meeting and this post follows up with notes on the meeting itself.

The AER Quietly Implemented a Two-Tier Mandatory Closure Spend Target

By Drew Yewchuk

On November 8, 2022

In Natural Resources, Oil & Gas

By: Drew Yewchuk

Regulatory Change Commented On: The AER’s Inventory Reduction Program

PDF Version: The AER Quietly Implemented a Two-Tier Mandatory Closure Spend Target

Starting in mid-2021, the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) adopted a new liability management framework to address the problems of inactive conventional oil and gas assets. The new liability management framework includes mandatory closure spend targets, a requirement for companies to spend a certain amount on closure work each year. The mandatory closure spend targets deal with the liabilities of inactive assets and not orphan assets (it is not to be confused with the orphan fund levy, used to fund the Orphan Well Association that abandons and remediates wells with owners that went bankrupt).