By: Nigel Bankes
PDF Version: Competing Uses of Geological Space: Resolving Conflicts Between Production and Natural Gas Storage
Decision Commented On: Kallisto Energy Corp. Application for a Well Licence Crossfield East Field, 2012 ABERCB 005, February 24, 2012
This decision deals with the potential for conflict between conventional oil and gas operations and natural gas storage projects.
The idea of resource use or landscape level conflicts is familiar to us in the context of the use of the surface. Consider, for example, the conflicts between recreation and forestry interests, between forestry and oil sands or conventional oil and gas exploration. The idea of competing uses of the subsurface is less familiar but our search for new resources or the application of new technologies to known resources is increasing the potential for those subsurface conflicts. High pressure fracturing operations to stimulate production either from shallow oil formations or deeper shale gas formations raises concerns about the effect of these operations on potable groundwater resources, and proposals to sequester carbon dioxide in saline formations or depleted oil or gas reservoirs raises concerns of sterilizing hydrocarbon resources. The province’s new CCS regime explicitly addresses this scenario through a provision in the Oil and Gas Conservation Act, (OGCA) RSA 2000, c O-6, s. 39(1.1) which provides that the ERCB “may not approve a scheme for the disposal of captured carbon dioxide to an underground formation…unless the [applicant] satisfies the Board that the injection of the captured carbon dioxide will not interfere with (a) the recovery or conservation of oil or gas, or (b) an existing use of the underground formation for the storage of oil or gas.”