Canada’s budget watchdog recently released a report that shows that the $1.7B federal money provided in 2020 to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells in Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C. isn’t landing on the corporations that need it.
When a well has been abandoned without a suitable operator, it is referred to as “orphaned.” According to PBO, most of them were orphaned following the 2014 oil price crisis and there are around 8,600 in Alberta and 1,500 in Saskatchewan
According to the PBO, the $1.7 billion should cover the costs of cleaning up orphaned wells “in the medium term.” However, provincial governments have granted money to wealthy corporations that can afford to decommission wells and are mandated to do so, rather than those who do not and really need the mone.
The report said: “Nearly half the funding in Alberta has been disbursed to firms that are viable, based on PBO’s calculations,”
Original source material for this article taken from here
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