Edmonton company fights $300K fine over prolonged toxic leak at Alberta oilfield well, Cancen Oil Processors facing order to suspend New Sarepta site over failed clean-up by Wallis Snowdon, CBC News, Sep 17, 2025
An Edmonton-based company is appealing the $303,769 fine it was issued for failing to clean up a toxic leak at an oilfield disposal well in central Alberta for more than two years.
According to a decision issued by the Alberta Energy Regulator last week, Cancen Oil Processors Inc.’s request for an appeal has been granted and a panel of independent 
no such thing as independent in Alberta, Alberta courts, or anywhere the oil and gas industry and its frac’ers operateadjudicators will be assembled to review the fine.
A hearing date has yet to be scheduled. The regulator has also recommended the matter to an alternative dispute resolution process.ADR is a “legal” scam, requiring instant gags on everyone involved, keeping all the gory toxic details from the public, and harmed landowner(s) and communities.
The company was sanctioned for a leak at its site in New Sarepta and for its continued failure to properly remediate the site, about 50 kilometres southeast of Edmonton.
Regulatory documents detail how the company failed to heed warnings about the risks of leaks from its abandoned tanks, ignored calls to clean up and has continued to defy regulatory orders.Standard operating practices by frac’ers in frac’ing free-for-all Alberta. AER’s job is to aid polluters and law violating companies, it’s useless as a “regulator” and has intentionally been set up to be ignored by polluters, with cheers by the evil queen Danielle Smith and her UCP polluter enablers
Following a string of violations, the AER has ordered Cancen Oil to suspend operations at New Sarepta and formally barred from acquiring new sites amid increasing concerns about the company’s ability to safely operate and manage its environmental liabilities.
Calls to the company’s head office in Edmonton were not returned.
A leak detected, a lack of action
The leak was first detected in the summer of 2022, months after Cancen Oil was warned about the risks of leaving out-of-service tanks filled with fluids.
During an inspection in August, following up on a complaint from the public, it was discovered that “flow back fluid” from one of the tanks was spilling out through an opened valve which had been vandalized. by Cancen? Cheapest way to get rid of toxic frac fluids is to dump ’em as happens regularly across frac fields.
Flow back fluids refer to the water that returns to the surface after hydraulic fracturing operations.
The leak, which contained petroleum hydrocarbons, ethylene glycol, monoethanolamine and other harmful compounds, had flowed into a man-made water runoff pond.
In August 2022, the company received a notice of non-compliance for not containing the spill, and was issued a formal order to address the release.
According to the AER investigation, the company failed to remediate the leak as ordered for at least 21 months.
During that time, it improperly treated the undrained pond and failed to complete adequate soil and groundwater testing, despite repeated assurances to the regulator that the work was being done.
The company told the regulator that around 160,000 litres of contaminated water had been removed from the pond but a follow-up inspection found that it had not been properly drained.
The contaminated water and tanks, still loaded with liquid, were allowed to solidify and then freeze over as summer turned to winter. Birds were seen in the water and tanks as well, according to AER documents.
About 7,000 tonnes of contaminated soil had to be either dug out or treated on site but the company continued to delay the work.
On Feb. 15, 2023, the AER issued an environmental protection order against Cancen for its failure to report and contain the release.
‘Lack of due diligence’
Tammy Loiselle, AER’s director of emissions, compliance, support and safety, met with representatives from the company in late January 2025 before making a final decision on the administrative penalty.
She determined the company should be penalized for delaying remediation work and its prolonged history of non-compliance.
According to AER documents, the company had been quoted more than $2.2 million for the remediation of the site but delayed the costs associated with remediation.
Loiselle said in her final penalty decision that the company had demonstrated “a lack of due diligence” and had profited from delaying the cleanup. There is no such thing as “due diligence” in the frac patch or in the AER.
“Cancen was aware of the requirements to contain and remediate but did not take practical steps or pursue viable alternatives to comply or address the release,” the AER said.
During the January meeting, company officials told the AER that they were surprised that there were timelines associated with clean-up. The company’s director told the AER that Cancen Oil had the money to either pay the penalty or clean up the release, not both.
The company, however, did not dispute the investigation findings and told the AER that remediation would begin by May.
In April, the company was ordered to suspend operations at New Sarepta. At that time, remediation work had still not begun and the AER determined that Cancen Oil continued to defy the environmental protection order and had failed to complete a clean-up plan and the mandated monitoring of the leak site.
Cancen was slapped with an administrative sanction in June for failing to meet its 2024 mandatory closure spend quota to the AER, a minimum required amount of money that companies must spend on closing and rehabilitating oil and gas sites annually.
Under the sanction, Cancen Oil is prohibited from acquiring any new well, facility or pipeline licences.
“It is necessary to suspend Cancen’s operations at New Sarepta to protect the public and environment,” the AER wrote. Too late! Ya, sure. After this appeal, the AER’s ADR gaggers will kill the fine, gag the truth, and let the Cancen goons back in full toxic operational swing with all past sanctions and slaps forgiven and kissed. Can’t let the big frac goons like Encana/Ovintiv etc. not have frac fluid waste services at their beck and and deadly call.
Refer also to:
2001 and 2004: Encana/Ovintiv, with full cover-up and blessings by AER and Alberta gov’t, illegally frac’d my community’s drinking water aquifers. Decades later, I’m still hauling alternate water and AER is about to let bitcoin scheister Persist Oil and Gas frac Rosebud again, near where Encana frac’d our aquifers. AER is a fucking mafia operation run by criminal shits in the oil patch. The only way to protect ground water and Alberta landowners from frac’ers and slovenly waste operators like Cancen Oil is to criminalize the AER and criminalize frac’ing.
