The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonatan Julien, promises that his government will make public information on the 62 oil and gas wells – including shale gas wells – which will have to be closed shortly at the expense of the ‘State by the companies responsible for it.
The duty revealed Wednesday morning that the Legault government refused to detail the situation of these wells, which will be closed definitively following the adoption of a law putting an end to oil and gas exploration in Quebec.
Following an access to information request, it was finally possible to obtain a document, but it was heavily redacted and contained only a few imprecise information. It contained only the number of 14 wells, including five wells for shale gas and eight for oil exploration, and the name of the company “responsible” for each of them. One of the companies mentioned had ceased to exist, another had left Quebec and a third had taken legal action against the government last year because of the stoppage of its oil project in Gaspé.
Arrested on Wednesday by The duty, Minister Jonatan Julien wanted to be reassuring. “The 62 wells are identified, we know who owns them and they have closure plans,” he said. Among these, there are drilled and fractured shale gas wells, but also other exploration wells, including wells that have produced barrels of crude oil in recent years in Gaspésie.
An estimated bill of 33 million
It is indeed these companies that will have to carry out the work of closing and restoring the drilling sites after having their plan approved by the Government of Quebec, he added. “The government is not responsible for the closure, but we will accompany them to ensure that it will be done well,” said the minister.
Jonatan Julien at the same time promised that “the cost estimates will be made public as they become available”, as will the progress of the work. According to him, the bill for taxpayers should not exceed $33 million, since Quebec will pay 75% of the total, which is estimated at $43 million.
However, there are also financial compensations that will be paid to companies that renounce their exploration permits: they are estimated by the Legault government at $100 million.
False transparency, denounce QS and the PQ
For the Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire, the fact of not disclosing the names of the companies responsible, the evaluation of the costs for each well and the work to be carried out testifies to the government’s lack of transparency in this file.
“Transparency was at the heart of the bill, yet the document sent to you is redacted. I don’t understand, ”dropped solidarity MP Manon Massé in an interview with the To have to. “However, not only must the information be made public, but we must ensure that no compensation is paid until the inspections are completed, after the restoration of the site. »
Same story on the side of PQ MP Sylvain Gaudreault. “The promised transparency is not there. For citizens who live near wells, it can be worrying, but also for municipalities who want to put an end to these wells on their territory,” he argues.
As part of the study of the bill that put an end to oil and gas exploration earlier this year, representatives of the municipal world demanded that the government act quickly so that wells are closed. Quebec promises that it will be done in a horizon of 12 to 48 months.
Some 775 wells already abandoned
Sylvain Gaudreault also stresses that it was essential to close the door to the industry and to impose the restoration of the 62 wells on the companies responsible before they no longer exist or they slip away.
There are already 775 abandoned wells in Quebec, of which 534 have been located and 95 which require “work” to help stop gas or oil leaks. While some wells have been leaking for several years, decontamination and closure work is slow to materialize.
How much will work for the 95 problematic abandoned wells cost? It is impossible, at the present time, to obtain an accurate estimate of the costs. For the moment, the 30 wells for which Quebec has entered a cost estimate lead to a total bill of $54 million, in which the work involving 16 wells is valued at more than $1 million each. However, this is less than a third of the wells officially under the responsibility of the State.
With Francois Carabin