The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) could use a few hundred fishhooks right about now.
They’d be for all those wrigglers in the huge can of worms the EUB opened, by agreeing to consider exemptions on shutting in natural gas wells in the Athabasca oilsands region.
The EUB ordered 938 gas wells in the Fort McMurray area shut down Sept. 1, to preserve the geological reservoir pressure that’s required to extract the tar-like bitumen, which has greater energy value than the gas.
But assorted gas producers, including Paramount Energy Trust, EnCana Corp., Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and BP Canada, have all filed applications to exempt a total of 733 wells.
Paramount alone got the EUB squirming by filing more than 200 applications to exempt the firm’s approximately 244 affected wells.
Each well for which there’s an exemption filed continues to operate.
Oilsands developer Petro-Canada calls the torrent of exemption applications an abuse of the EUB’s process.
It’s either that or some geologists – those working for the EUB or the gas producers – have grossly miscalculated the risks of the gas production to the bitumen extraction.
The debate over this issue has been spun out like monofilament for seven years. The EUB needs to deal expeditiously and on the basis of sound geological science with all 733 applications – and then stand by its decisions.
Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. is taking another run at building a “green” hydroelectric project on the Peace River.
The Calgary-based renewable energy developer says it will request by the end of this year a formal review and appeal of regulatory agencies’ rejection of its proposed $200-million, 80-megawatt “run-of-river” project.
In March, a joint Alberta Energy and Utilities Board-Natural Resources Conservation Board hearing panel denied an application by Glacier Power Ltd., a Canadian Hydro subsidiary, to build a six-metre-high power-generating weir across the Peace River just upstream of the Highway 2 bridge at Dunvegan.
The panel cited potential flooding risks to the town of Peace River and other concerns.
But Canadian Hydro says that if regulators grant its request for a review, the company anticipates a new hearing date will be set and a decision made by mid-2004.
Petro-Canada’s announcement last week to permanently close its refinery in Oakville, Ont., will eliminate 350 jobs at the plant.
The company plans to consolidate its Eastern Canada refining operations at its Montreal refinery at the end of next year.
Chief executive Ron Brenneman said Petro-Canada would have had to spend $250 million to $350 million on the 45-year-old Oakville refinery to comply with new federal rules to reduce the levels of polluting sulphur in gasoline to 30 parts per million by Jan. 1, 2005. The average sulphur content in gasoline today is 340 ppm.
The job losses are lamentable. But lest you think they are too high a price to pay to reduce some harmful air pollution, consider what Health Canada’s expert panel said about the benefits of cutting sulphur in gasoline.
The health experts concluded that the new regulation will prevent 2,000 premature deaths, 93,000 cases of bronchitis in children and 11 million incidents of respiratory problems, such as asthma attacks, over the next 20 years.
The day after Petro-Canada said it was closing the Oakville plant, Imperial Oil officially opened its $80-million project that reduces the sulphur in gasoline at its Dartmouth, N.S., refinery by more than 90 per cent. Imperial says it’s spending $575 million across Canada to ensure all its operations will be producing fuel averaging less than 30 ppm of sulphur by November this year.
Alberta Environment is pushing ahead with major changes to how it monitors and enforces reclamation of oil and gas wellsites and other oilfield facilities.
The changes, first reported by Business Edge (cover story, May 8-14 issue), take effect Oct. 1. They include an end to routine onsite inspections at every site.
Unless a landowner complains, provincial inspectors will only check sites where there are known soil and water concerns or where an oil and gas company has a history of non- compliance.
The government says the changes are necessary because there’s a backlog of more than 28,000 wellsites and 18,400 pipelines awaiting reclamation certificates showing they’ve been properly restored.
The new system includes stiffer penalties for firms that do improper work and an enhanced complaint process for landowners.
But the key to making this work will be the person hired by an oil and gas company to supervise the reclamation efforts and sign off on them on behalf of the company.
If that person isn’t a qualified professional with expertise in soil types, groundwater movement and hydrocarbon contamination, the government’s new “streamlined” system will quickly bog down.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) is taking the “if you build it, they will approve it” approach to its planned $8.5-billion Horizon oilsands project near Fort McMurray.
In anticipation of getting a regulatory green light, CNRL has already starting building a $40-million, 22-kilometre access road for its proposed oilsands pit mine.
A joint Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB)-Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency public hearing on CNRL’s application is scheduled to begin next Monday, Sept. 15, in Fort McMurray.
So, are the results of regulatory hearings in Alberta now a foregone conclusion? And if so, what’s the point of holding these costly hearings in the first place?
Speaking of which, joint-venture partners Nexen Inc. and OPTI Canada Inc. recently won approval for their $3-billion Long Lake oilsands project without having to go to a public hearing.
There was a good reason in this case.
In its decision, the EUB praised the companies for “their proactive approach to consultation and their success in reaching agreement and understanding with a number of aboriginal communities and other stakeholders.”
Two new Alberta initiatives will help keep greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere and energy royalty dollars flowing into provincial coffers.
The Alberta and federal governments and nine major oil and gas producers that call themselves the DOVAP consortium have teamed up on a $30-million heavy oil research project to test the VAPEX technology. It involves injecting vaporized solvents into heavy oil so it flows more easily and can be pumped to the surface.
The partners, which last week opened a new test facility at Devon Canada’s Dover site near Fort McMurray, say VAPEX technology could cut carbon dioxide emissions by 85 per cent (by eliminating the need to burn natural gas to produce steam for extracting heavy oil) and also greatly reduce the industry’s consumption of fresh water.
In a separate initiative, Calgary-based Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada (PTAC) will receive $738,000 over the next three years from Western Economic Diversification Canada to implement the Eco-efficient and Greenhouse Technologies Program.
The PTAC program, which includes an additional $207,000 a year from the oil and gas industry, will support the development and use of new low-emission technologies in the oilpatch.
