(Sainte-Françoise) Ten years after launching a program to secure abandoned gas and oil wells, the Quebec government has closed only two “problematic” wells out of 87, at a cost of $12 million. Despite this, one of these wells, which is still leaking, represented “a risk to human health” in 2020.
What there is to know
There are 775 orphan wells in Quebec. Of this number, 87 must undergo definitive closure work, according to the Ministry of Energy.
For the moment, only two wells have been closed, at a cost of 12 million. One of them is still fleeing. Quebec signed a contract without call for tenders with an engineering firm to find a solution.
There is no timetable for closing these wells. The first action plan for orphan wells was launched in 2014.
These revelations were made as part of the legal proceedings of the 12 oil and gas companies contesting the end of hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation in Quebec.
Engineer Jacinthe Légaré-Laganière, engineering and environment coordinator at the geological reservoir expertise department at the Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy (MEIE), said in questioning that only two wells had been the subject of closure work out of 87 wells deemed “problematic”.
“According to data from Investissement Québec, the costs of bringing the two wells up to standard and definitively closing them in 2018 and 2019 reached a little more than 12.1 million,” confirmed Jean-Pierre D’Auteuil, head of media relations at MEIE, in an email.
These high costs “can be explained in particular by the exceptional difficulties encountered during the work, such as equipment breakdowns, the discovery of obstacles, cavities or inclination in the casings and unforeseen gas emissions”, a- he added.
Mme Légaré-Laganière explained that during the resealing work, the employees “came across tools which had been dropped into the well, drilling tools, probably made of steel, very hard”. “This caused a lot of delay in the work, costly recovery operations which had not been planned,” she said.
Danger of explosion and risk to human health
However, despite this definitive closure work, one of the wells, the A-190, drilled in 1978 by SOQUIP in Sainte-Françoise, in the Bécancour region, still represented a risk “for human health” during a MEIE inspection carried out in 2020.
“If the well is kept under pressure as during the MERN visit [ancien ministère de l’Énergie et des Ressources naturelles], there is a risk to human health. The pressure is high and a sudden opening of the valves will release pressurized natural gas at very high flow rates, and possibly brine. There is a danger of explosion if the gas valve is suddenly opened,” reads a report consulted by The Press. It is also noted that “liquid was escaping from the surface casing”.
The inspectors note that “if the valves remain open permanently, there is emanation through the two vents into the environment. However, the well is no longer pressurized and the risk is reduced.” However, their recommendations are redacted.
The other well, the A-216, drilled in 1992 by SOQUIP in the forest of the seigneury of Lotbinière, is experiencing “gas migration” which does not, however, represent “a risk according to the law on hydrocarbons”, since methane emanation does not exceed 1 m3 per day, according to a 2021 inspection.
On November 16, the MEIE also awarded a direct contract for $800,000 with the company FIG Services-Conseils in particular to “analyze the work carried out by SOQUIP and design a program of necessary work in order to to resolve the remaining problems of these two wells.
“The Ministry is already working to resolve the remaining problems on the A-190 and A-216 wells, with the mandate granted to FIG Services-Conseils. According to preliminary planning, it is estimated that the necessary work will be completed by 2026,” writes the MEIE.
Many unanswered questions
As for the 85 other orphan wells deemed “problematic”, “there is no year that has been identified for having completed all the definitive closure work, if it was required”, indicated Mr.me Légaré-Laganière. “We have done detailed cost calculations for only three wells […]. It’s not advanced enough to start saying: we know how much it’s going to cost,” she explained.
This is a file that is lying around at the Ministry of Energy. In 2014, the Couillard government launched an action plan for the inspection of inactive wells in Quebec, which provided for the execution of work for the “restoration of problem sites” from 2015.
In May 2018, Liberal Minister Pierre Moreau announced a plan to secure gas and oil wells for the sake of “protecting the environment and reassuring the public”, with an envelope of only 2 million per year.
He was then quite critical of his ministry, which lacked rigor when inspecting wells. An example: “when the ministry could not identify a well, in the categorization of that well, it was indicated that it was a compliant situation because there was no non-compliant situation of underlined, which appears to me to be imprecise to say the least,” lamented Mr. Moreau.