Oil organisation ceasing operations, withdrawal thousands of untended Alberta wells
A large series of oil and gas wells, comforts and tube segments mount to be combined to a already prominent files of a Alberta Orphan Well Association in a arise of a expected disaster of Sequoia Resources Corp.
All of a Calgary-based company’s handling licences were systematic dangling after a secretly reason oil and gas organisation warned a Alberta Energy Regulator late final month it was ceasing operations “imminently” and, as a outcome of “defaults in metropolitan taxation payments,” would not be means to means to retrieve all of a properties.
The AER pronounced Sequoia owns licences for 2,300 wells, roughly 200 comforts and scarcely 700 tube segments.
That list doesn’t embody 700 to 800 Sequoia wells where prolongation has been stopped and the wellbore has been spotless adult though a aspect hasn’t been restored, pronounced Lars De Pauw, executive executive of a Orphan Well Association. That means a list might arise to roughly 4,000 properties.
“We’re going to get a fairly sizable chunk of those sites when this is all finished though nothing of them have been designated an waif (yet). We’re expecting around 75 per cent of those sites are going to come to us,” he pronounced on Thursday.
Last spring, a range announced it would lend $235 million to a organisation to speed adult remediation of about 700 waif wells over a subsequent 3 years.
Through an annual attention levy, petroleum producers are to compensate a principal behind over 10 years, while $30 million supposing to a range by a sovereign supervision will be used to compensate interest.
The Orphan Well Association listed scarcely 2,900 waif wells available abandonment or reclamation as of as of Feb. 28, along with 2,350 tube segments set for abandonment. (Reuters)
The organisation listed scarcely 2,900 waif wells available abandonment or reclamation as of as of Feb. 28, along with 2,350 tube segments set for abandonment.
“With a appropriation we had received, a swell loan that came from a supervision that’s being repaid by industry, we were in a good place to understanding with a stream register over a subsequent 3 years,” De Pauw said.
“But this is… fundamentally going to annul that.”
Sequoia did not respond to an emailed talk ask and a phone call to a Calgary bureau wasn’t answered.
Regulator warns organisation still liable
PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. said on a website it has been named keeper for Sequoia after a organisation filed a notice of goal in justice final week to make a offer underneath a Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
In the AER order, addressed to Sequoia director Wentao Yang and executive and president Hao Wang, a regulator warns that Sequoia is obliged for a protected properties even if it is insolvent.
“So basically, it means a organisation still has to residence their (oil and gas well) end-of-life obligations, post confidence or send a site to suitable parties,” AER spokesman Ryan Bartlett said.
“Currently all the licences are suspended, a organisation has to safeguard a sites are in a protected state, shutting them down or shutting them, and they have 30 days to come into correspondence with a order.”
The AER also warned Sequoia’s partners could be invited to bid to take over licences in that they reason an interest.
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Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-energy-regulator-sequoia-resources-untended-wells-1.4567790?cmp=rss