A new report says Alberta’s oil and gas producers spent $769 million cleaning up old wells last year, a $73 million increase from the prior year.
The report by the Alberta Energy Regulator says the amount of money spent by industry on oil well cleanup was 10 per cent higher than companies were required to spend under provincial rules.
Alberta has been working to address a backlog of thousands of old and inactive wells in the province.
Between 2000 and 2020, the number of inactive wells in the province grew at a rate of five per cent annually but has been trending downwards since, in part due to a suite of new rules aimed at tackling the problem.
The report says in 2023, the number of inactive oil and gas wells in Alberta decreased by five per cent, to 79,000 from 83,000.
But the regulator says there is more work to do, as the total outstanding liability associated with the cost of cleaning up the remaining wells sits at $33.1 billion.