Western Canada’s inactive wells back in the spotlight

Orphan wells are growing in number, but high oil prices may present a good opportunity to tackle the problem

Canada’s independent Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) released a report at the end of January estimating the cost of cleaning up so-called orphan oil and gas wells in Western Canada through 2025. PBO estimates the figure required for cleaning up Alberta’s and Saskatchewan’s c.10,000 orphan wells—those with no viable operator capable of addressing their environmental liabilities—to have been C$361mn ($284mn) as of 2020. It expects this figure to rise to C$1.1bn by 2025 as more inactive wells become orphaned. The estimate has been widely criticised by academics and groups representing landowners negatively impacted by inactive wells, who claim it inadvertently minimises the scale of the prob