The end of gas and oil activities in Quebec will have to wait. The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonatan Julien, agreed on Thursday that his bill to put an end to the hydrocarbon sector would not be tabled until next year, due to difficulties in establishing the compensation that will be paid to industry.
“We turned all the stones to ensure the adequacy of the compensation,” said the elected representative of the Coalition Avenir Québec when approached by The duty in the minutes following the question period in the National Assembly. [Ça] made it so that we are not able to table it this session. “
In his opening speech last October, Prime Minister François Legault announced with great fanfare that his government would quickly ban exploration for hydrocarbons on Quebec territory. In interview with The duty in the following days, Minister Julien had said he wanted a modification to the law by the end of 2021. In November, the Legault government also took advantage of the COP26 to join the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance , an intergovernmental coalition aimed at making the exit from hydrocarbons a reality.
However, parliamentary regulations establish that a bill must be placed on the agenda at least one day before tabling it. Thursday, on the eve of the end of work for 2021, the government’s bill on hydrocarbons was conspicuous by its absence.
The legislative measure will arrive “at the beginning of the next session”, assured Mr. Julien on Tuesday. “We want to have a completed bill,” continued the elected. We are on the verge of being able to put it down. Quickly after the holidays. “
“Complex”
The winter parliamentary session begins at the beginning of February. By then, Quebec wants to have settled the articles relating to compensation in the legislative text. On several occasions, the Legault government has argued that it should untie the purse strings to compensate the oil companies.
“The complexity of these elements required analyzes of the scenarios and the impacts that they had. There is also the legal aspect… ”, affirmed Mr. Julien.
PQ member Sylvain Gaudreault “thinks the government is wrong” by venturing down the path of compensation. According to an analysis by the Center québécois du droit de l’environnement (CQDE), the government could legislate in such a way as to avoid giving a single penny to oil and gas companies. It suffices “to clearly express your intention” in a bill.
In turn this session, Québec solidaire and the Parti Québécois tabled legislative texts on the cessation of hydrocarbons. Each had an article to this effect. “The government already has this power in environmental matters since 2017,” noted Sylvain Gaudreault on Thursday. The longer he waits, the more the industry fuels its weapons. So I think the government should move quickly. “
In 2011, the Liberal government of Jean Charest acted in this way by adopting the Act limiting oil and gas activities, which had the effect of canceling exploration permits in the St. Lawrence River and Estuary. The Government of Canada has, however, been targeted since 2012 by a lawsuit brought by the American company Lone Pine Resources, following the adoption of this legislation. It is asking for $ 150 million, under North American free trade rules.
The co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire, Manon Massé, is surprised that Québec has postponed the tabling of its bill until 2022, in a context where the government has praised its abandonment of oil and gas at the Glasgow Conference on climate change. “They broke the suspenders, she illustrated at the end of the line. To wait is to continue sending the message to the oil companies that they can eventually make gains. “
Call for reflection
For Éric Tétrault, president of the Association de l’énergie du Québec (AEQ), which represents oil and gas companies holding exploration permits, the government must take the time to reflect before closing the door to the industry. . He says he fears “the repercussions” in the entire industry in Quebec. “If I were a mining executive, I would immediately wonder if my turn is coming. Buying back securities sets a dangerous precedent for them. “
According to Mr. Tétrault, by acting in this way, “Quebec risks alienating itself for good from major trading partners like Alberta”, while citizens would be open to the idea of projects to test ” new technologies ”for gas exploitation, according to a survey conducted by the AEQ.
The president of Utica Resources, Mario Lévesque, declined to comment on Thursday on the postponement of the tabling of Minister Jonathan Julien’s bill. Certainly, companies are already on the verge of claiming millions of dollars, even billions. This is the case of Utica Resources, a company controlled by Austrian shareholders. It got its hands on several permits abandoned by other companies, so much so that it now controls 29 permits, totaling approximately 4,400 km2 in the lowlands of the St.Lawrence and in the Gaspé.
According to what its president, Mario Lévesque, specified this fall in a written response to Duty, the value of the assets would amount to “several billion dollars”. An opinion shared by Eric Tétrault, who estimates that alone, the shale gas of the St. Lawrence Valley could represent “lost profits” of “3 to 5 billion dollars”.
Wells to be decontaminated
In addition to compensating businesses, the Quebec government must clean up and decontaminate abandoned oil and gas wells in Quebec. However, as revealed The duty in November, it is currently impossible to obtain a precise estimate of the costs of decontamination of exploration wells which are borne by the State
According to data from the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MERN), 534 “inactive” wells have been located since 2018, and 241 others have not been found, despite inspections carried out by the ministry. Of this number, 209 are considered “non-locatable”.
Among the inactive wells located, the MERN estimates that 95 will require “work”, for example to stop natural gas or oil leaks. However, the only list including an assessment of the restoration costs per well dates from March 31, 2020. It only has 30 wells recorded as “liabilities for contaminated sites” (PTSC), or less than a third of the wells which are officially to be restored. . The estimated amount for these 30 wells totals $ 54 million.