450,000 Wells In Alberta; Of Millions In Rent Owed To Landowners By Oil Cos, Taxpayers Pay 98.2%

[hatrack]

Perry Nelson has been farming near Provost, Alta., for more than 50 years — since he took over from his dad in 1965. He runs mostly cattle, some grain. In 2012, he bought some more land, for extra pasture for his cattle. As with so much land in Alberta, it came with oil and gas wells already drilled deep down below the surface. “The wells were on it when I bought it,” Nelson told The Narwhal. “Abandoned wells.”

“I don’t think [the company] had any intention of paying,” he said of the company that owned the wells and owed him money in the form of annual rent for drilling a well on his land. “That guy’s gone broke I don’t know how many times,” he told The Narwhal. “[The regulator] still lets him start over again.” Sure enough, according to Nelson, the company was soon a year behind on the annual rent payments it owed.

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There are 450,000 oil and gas wells registered in Alberta. They’re dotted across the province — one for every 1.4 square kilometres — and are on both public and private land. For many landowners, they have become an enormous burden: there’s the added difficulty of farming around a wellhead, the noxious weeds, the dust, the added traffic. But it’s goes beyond that. For many farmers and landowners — who are not receiving the basic compensation owed to them by oil and gas companies — there’s a financial headache as well.

In Alberta, landowners are supposed to receive compensation in the form of annual rent, to reimburse them for lost productivity, nuisance and adverse effects. Far too often, advocates say, the company simply doesn’t pay.

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https://thenarwhal.ca/alberta-taxpayers-footing-bill-for-delinquent-oil-and-gas-companies-investigation-reveals/

[mountain grammy]

1. Colorado!

Sometimes the "abandoned" wells and pipelines actually explode and kill people. Happened in Firestone, CO, while O&G buy air time to inform the public about how safe they are.