It’s time to nationalize Shell. Private oil companies are no longer fit for purpose, Failing, heavily subsidized private oil companies enjoy the profits of oil extraction while the rest of us pay in tax dollars, human rights abuses, and an unlivable climate by Johanna Bozuwa and Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, June 7, 2021, The Guardian
This is rich: Shell officially opposing elsewhere what Shell appears to be setting up to in Alberta with Pieridae: Oil Firms Challenge Fieldwood’s Reorganization Plan by Maria Chutchian, Thomson Reuters June 4, 2021, oedigital
Several oil companies are challenging Fieldwood Energy’s proposed reorganization plan, saying it does not appropriately address its environmental obligations. The oil companies, which include Shell Offshore, BP Exploration & Production, ConocoPhillips Company and Marathon Oil Company, previously sold rights and interests in various oil and gas properties to Fieldwood or its predecessor, Apache Corporation, or have signed contracts with Fieldwood governing assets that are being transferred under the proposed plan. … The oil companies objecting to the plan contend that Fieldwood has not explained how it will address the environmental and regulatory liabilities associated with those leases and fear they will wind up on the hook for the costs. 
Ya? What about the disgust of many Canadians concerned that Shell plans to walk from its sour gas clean up via Pieridae! They also asserted that the new entities created through the restructuring will not have enough money to pay for any new environmental liabilities. …
Most of the world’s proposed LNG projects unlikely to be built as investors fall out of love with natural gas, A quarter of them are located in Canada by Financial Post Staff, Jun 09, 2021, Calgary Herald
… Goldboro LNG, backed by Calgary-based Pieridae Energy Ltd. is expected to make a final investment decision this month, according to its CEO Alfred Sorensen.
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Some of the comments to the article below:
grassguy:
Another oil company scam….
Ivan Paul Dobren:
“the application to a public hearing underscores rising worry in the province about the number of inactive oil and gas wells, and who gets left on the hook for cleaning them up”
Who is on the hook to clean up the “orphan wells”?
Well, the Canadian tax payer of course, NOT the Alberta tax payer, but rather the Canadian taxpayer.
I wonder if Jason Kenney will ever say “thank you Canada”
Doubtful…………at best.
… Regardless of the lack of intelligence and education coming from the far-right Alberta Tea Party Reformers, one would have HOPED that basic math was something even the lunatic fringe Reformers could “handle”
I guess not………..the Te Party wannabees in Alberta have yet to figure out what a “ledger” is and how basic accounting works. One of the main reason why the Fraser Institute gets away with lies they publish.
As in; you are just too gullible, lacking in intelligence, education and basic logic.
Oh well…….
Mc_Murray:
Why would we expect any better than Nigeria gets from Shell? There is a reason why they have expat programs and its to ensure that long term consequences are born by the people on the land they use not as part of their cost structure.
brissy:
Shell has demonstrated clearly and time and again that it is an irresponsible environmental player no matter where its operations are. The next environmental nightmare after Pieridae will be the LNG facility being jointly developed by that other poor environmental steward, Petronas.
Canuck_in_ UK_007:
This scam has been used to dump liabilities from O&G companies to smaller organizations that eventually give up and leave the AB taxpayers on the hook both on a financial and an environmental perspective. I am a bit surprised that a well respected organization like Shell is doing this (versus some of the other in the oil patch). Make them responsible for the liability – they seemed quite happy when they got the proceeds of the oil and gas produced from these assets.
JHay99:
Why not just force the oil companies to post a bond or takeout insurance policies or something equivalent. There must be a way to hold their feet to the fire when cleanup time comes. There is no way that politicians should be allowed to let the public end up with the cost.
DixonDavid:
Yeam Canada – just google “calgary company bankruptcy leave well behind”, and you will get about 20 direct hits on this SCAM.
Like the junk yard when all the good old parts were gone, ‘donated” the rest to “cars for kidneys” and made them haul them away and got a tax credit att eh same time.
the law is for suckers, the profit lies with the ones bending the rules dishonourably.
enough said
grayasinspecialcaseofblackandwh:
Read Pieridae last annual report and see for yourself if you think they can handle any clean up costs.
Bob Hambley:
Make the company directors personally responsible.
Shell’s proposal to transfer licences to Pieridae sparks outcry over ability of small firm to cover cleanup costs by Emma Graney, June 4, 2021, The Globe and Mail
Shell Canada’s ongoing bid to transfer hundreds of natural gas licences in Alberta to a junior energy player will go to a public hearing, after dozens of landowners and the Orphan Well Association filed concerns that Pieridae Energy Ltd. lacks the financial might to cover the cost of cleaning up the assets.
The decision by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) to send the application to a hearing came the same month Pieridae cleaned up a leak from a sour gas pipeline it operates on behalf of Shell southwest of Cochrane, which is about 20 kilometres from the outskirts of Calgary.
The unusual step of sending the application to a public hearing underscores rising worry in the province about the number of inactive oil and gas wells, and who gets left on the hook for cleaning them up. It also signals a possible shift at the regulator, which for years critics say has not done enough to enforce the polluter-pays principle that guides the province’s energy framework.
Close to 40 statements of concern filed with the AER oppose the Shell-Pieridae plan, which would transfer the licences for Shell’s Waterton, Jumping Pound and Caroline gas plants – and the fields that supply them, known as the Foothills assets – to Pieridae Alberta Production Ltd., a subsidiary of Pieridae Energy. In all, the application includes 282 well licences, 70 facility licences and 81 pipeline licences.
Those concerns include various anxieties about site maintenance and effects on farms, but one thread weaves them together: a worry that Pieridae could fail, sending the sites onto the books of the Orphan Well Association (OWA), with taxpayers or industry When has industry cleaned up in Alberta? left holding the cleanup bill.
Pieridae reported a $100-million net loss in its 2020 annual report, but spokesman James Millar told The Globe and Mail that the company has demonstrated it is technically, operationally and financially able to satisfy all of its regulatory obligations now and into the future. He also noted that when the company purchased Shell’s assets, “all vital employees came over [from Shell] to Pieridae So, by Pieridae’s admission, it’s just another Oil ‘n Gas patch shell game? so we have their skills to operate the assets safely.”
But many landowners say Shell has profited off the wells for decades, and should not be allowed to shirk its environmental responsibilities.
Even the OWA is leery of the plan. The non-profit association, which is responsible for cleaning up wells with no owners, is funded via industry levies. But it has received more than $500-million in provincial and federal government loans since 2017, as it struggles to deal with a growing burden of sites flooding its books. Why is the Globe enabling the rape & pillage shell games? The OWA is a con funded by billions of dollars less than required from industry, intentionally setting up taxpayers for the fall. It’s been going on for years.
The association said in a statement of concern that the transfer would “pose a significant potential risk to the OWA and the industry in general who to a shamefully tiny degree funds our work unless it is appropriately backstopped financially by the parties to the transaction.”
The issue dates back to 2019, when Pieridae bought a series of gas-producing Shell assets for $190-million. They are to play a key role in feeding the massive Goldboro project that Pieridae has planned for the Nova Scotia coast to export liquefied natural gas.
Following the sale, Shell and Pieridae requested the AER divide the existing operating and environmental approvals of the assets between the two companies. But the Alberta regulator denied the application in May, 2020, saying the proposal to split the liability contained too many uncertainties.
Shell reapplied to the AER in January. This time, it asked to transfer all licences and approvals for the Foothills Assets to Pieridae, with Shell retaining the liability for the management and remediation of specific environmental contamination for the Waterton and Jumping Pound gas plants.
But the AER didn’t accept that application either. Instead, given the breadth of concerns, it decided a public hearing is necessary.
Douglas Glass, a complainant who worries that Pieridae will not be able to handle the eventual environmental cleanup, has lived in the middle of the Jumping Pound gas field for 30 years, and is blunt in his critique of the Shell-Pieridae plan.
“We trusted in Shell – they’re a big company, they’ve got lots of money behind them to clean up. Pieridae is a mess financially and I’m concerned that what will happen is they will go under, and then these things will get left,” he said. I believe no oil and gas company is to be trusted when it comes to clean up, most plan to walk, have planned so since day one, enabled by AER and self-serving politicians. I believe AER is only having a hearing to take back control of the con. Too many Canadians are seeing through OWA and AER’s rot and lies; AER needs to make citizens stop thinking for themselves and will try to do that with the hearing and make concerned Canadians go back to sleep.
“I wish them well. I hope they make it. But it’s all a house of cards.”
William McNabb, whose mom runs a ranch by the gas fields and submitted a statement of concern, says there’s uncertainty around junior players like Pieridae.
“There are good people there because they’re transferring over from Shell, but you just don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says.
He’s not surprised the application is going to a public hearing. He thinks it’s because “people are wising up” to instances of energy companies using regulation gaps as an easy out around environmental reclamation. They’re not gaps, they’re intentional doorways to freedom, intentionally made by industry, for industry, to serve the mega rich, never the environment or citizenry.
“People are starting to see there is a loophole that’s being used by corporations to get rid of assets to the government. That’s what we’re really trying to prevent here,” he said.
As for the Pieridae pipeline leak reported to the regulator on May 3, analysis found that around 4,000 litres of hydrocarbons and processed water dripped into the soil, contaminating an area measuring about 1.5 metres by 10 m. Mr. Millar said crews discovered the leak during scheduled maintenance at its Jumping Pound gas complex. They immediately shut down the pipeline and notified the regulator and landowner.
Mr. Millar said soil samples have determined that the environmental impact of the leak was “minimal.” I doubt that very much. He added that affected soil and water were “immediately removed and appropriately disposed of.”
Refer also to:
Gérard Montpetit: Judicial terrorism, includes by Pieridae
Hello Pieridae, Are you watching? Another LNG project bites the-damning-environmental-report dust
