ABLawg

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

On March 31, 2023

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.

What is the Status of the Shell/Pieridae Deal and What is the AER Doing?

By Nigel Bankes

On March 27, 2023

In Oil & Gas, Uncategorized

By: Nigel Bankes

Matter commented on: Deferred Shell/Pieridae Licence Transfer Application: Amended Notice of Hearing, Proceeding 410, Shell Canada Limited and Pieridae Alberta Production Ltd., Caroline, Waterton, and Jumping Pound, and 2022 ABAER 001.

PDF Version: What is the Status of the Shell /Pieridae Deal and What is the AER Doing?

In 2019, Shell Canada, an international major, entered into a purchase and sale agreement (PSA) with Pieridae Alberta Production Ltd. The PSA contemplated that Shell would sell Pieridae its interests in what are known as Shell’s ‘Foothills Natural Gas Assets’ in Alberta: the Waterton, Jumping Pound, and Caroline fields. These assets are all sour gas assets meaning that they are rich in hydrogen sulphide, thus their development and continuing production pose considerable risks to human health as well as technical risks to the integrity of facilities that must be carefully managed.

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

Commented On: Alberta Energy Regulator Announcement – March 02, 2023: Alberta Energy Regulator Actively Investigating and Responding to Imperial Oil Kearl Site Incident; and Letter to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner Requesting an Investigation of AER Emergency Disclosure Policy

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).

Biodiversity Offsets and the Species at Risk Act (Canada)

By Shaun Fluker

On February 27, 2023

In Environmental, Protection of Species

By: Shaun Fluker

Matter Commented On: Environment and Climate Change Canada Draft Offsetting Policy for Biodiversity

PDF Version: Biodiversity Offsets and the Species at Risk Act (Canada)

The federal government has a laudable objective of ‘no net loss’ for development projects that will harm biodiversity in Canada. For threatened species who will lose habitat because of development, the concept of ‘no net loss’ means either avoidance, mitigation, or offsets. Avoidance of habitat loss (e.g. no project) is rarely seriously considered – and is really nonsensical when a project footprint overlaps with habitat – and efforts aimed at mitigation of adverse effects on threatened species are widely known to be pie-in-the-sky measures with little or no effectiveness (see here). Thus, a ‘no net loss’ outcome in the context of choosing between development and protecting habitat necessarily means the use of biodiversity offsets. David Poulton has written extensively for ABlawg on the topic of biodiversity offsets and resource development (see e.g. here), and a constant theme in this topic is the legal and policy vacuum on biodiversity offsets. In 2016, the Public Interest Law Clinic submitted comments on a proposed offsets policy under section 73 of the Species at Risk Act, SC 2002, c 29 (Drew Yewchuk and I posted that submission to ABlawg here). Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has recently issued a draft Offsetting Policy for Biodiversity which will replace its 2012 policy, and this post publishes my submission letter giving comments to ECCC on the Offsets Policy as it relates to threatened species, in response to the public engagement which closed on February 17, 2023.