Latest news with #Syncrude
CTV News
13-06-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Alberta to explore injecting oil sands tailings underground as one management option
A highway loops around a tailings pond at the Syncrude facility as seen from a helicopter tour of the oilsands near Fort McMurray, Alta., on July 10, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh The Alberta government says it is considering letting oil companies inject wastewater deep underground as a way to manage the toxic tailings that are accumulating in the oilsands. The idea is one of five policy recommendations being put forward by a government-appointed committee tasked with studying potential tailings management options. A new report from the committee, which was formed over a year ago and is chaired by United Conservative MLA Tany Yao of Fort McMurray, says injecting mine water underground is a practical solution -- but considering over 1.4 trillion litres of tailings exist as of 2023, it can't be the only option. 'The accumulation of (oilsands mine water) represents a management challenge, particularly in the absence of established water release standards,' the report reads. 'This approach helps to mitigate the continued accumulation of (tailings) and provides a buffer while longer-term water management strategies are being developed and implemented.' The report doesn't say exactly how much of the existing tailings volume it recommends to be disposed of in this way, but that 'regulated limits should be placed on the volume of water that can be injected.' The committee's report says underground disposal of tailings — which are mixtures of water, sand, bitumen residue and chemicals — wouldn't ruin sources of drinking water as the wastewater would be disposed of underneath many layers of impermeable rock. However, the report says there are a number of factors that would make underground disposal at a major scale a costly and lengthy endeavour. New infrastructure and pipelines would need to be constructed since 'there are limited geologically suitable deep well disposal sites' close to the oilsands, and if new underground wells are to be drilled the timeline for approval and consultation also 'may not contribute towards an accelerated strategy to manage and reduce accumulated (tailings) on the landscape.' The committee — which includes former Alberta environment minister Lorne Taylor and University of Alberta engineering professor and Canada Research Chair in sustainable and resilient wastewater treatment for reuse Dr. Mohamed Gamal El-Din — also wrote that this disposal method would be in direct competition with carbon capture and storage projects for underground space. Aliénor Rougeot, the senior program manager of climate and energy with advocacy group Environmental Defence, said she's happy to see the Alberta government recognize the urgency of the tailings ponds, but she's skeptical underground disposal is as safe as the committee is making it out to be. 'I don't know that we are at a stage where we could even say if we can safely inject anything down there,' she said, adding that any tailings disposed underground would have to be treated completely. In a letter accompanying the recommendations, Yao wrote that the committee 'is satisfied' that technology exists to treat and safely release tailings water. Rougeot said such a claim is news to her. 'If they have a solution to fully treat the water to a quality that's good enough to be put into the environment, that water should be good enough to be back into the production process,' she said, noting the committee's report states oilsands mining operations use about 220-billion litres of fresh water every year. Rougeot said if the government is serious about tackling the problem of tailings in the oilsands it should make a requirement that companies can no longer use fresh water in their mining operations, especially if the technology exists to treat it to a degree that's safe for environmental release as Yao wrote. 'There's more than enough existing tailings volumes to meet all the needs of all the production on a given day,' she said. 'I want to see first a 100 per cent reuse rate of the existing tailings, and then we can talk about disposal.' Another recommendation being made by the committee is for Alberta to make policy changes to encourage companies to share wastewater across different types of oil mining facilities in order to reduce the need for freshwater use, and therefore the production of further tailings. Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz said in a government release Thursday that her ministry will evaluate the committee's recommendations over the next six months before implementing a new tailings management plan. 'We need to start finding a path to more effectively manage oilsands mine water and tailing ponds,' Schulz said. 'Doing nothing while mine water continues accumulating is not a sustainable approach.' NDP environment critic Sarah Elmeligi agreed with Rougeot, saying in a statement that injecting tailings underground would be 'irresponsible because we don't know the risks involved to groundwater or geological stability.' 'Nothing in these proposed methods remotely comes close to addressing future environmental and health impacts and we have already seen many Indigenous communities living downstream continue to deal with these consequences,' Elmeligi said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 12, 2025. Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press
CTV News
12-06-2025
- Automotive
- CTV News
Alberta to explore injecting oil sands tailings underground as one management option
A highway loops around a tailings pond at the Syncrude facility as seen from a helicopter tour of the oil sands near Fort McMurray, Alta., on July 10, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Canada Standard
09-05-2025
- Business
- Canada Standard
Alberta has long accused Ottawa of trying to destroy its oil industry. Here's why that's a dangerous myth
"Alberta is a place soaked in self-deception." Those words began Alberta-based journalist Mark Lisac's 2004 book aimed at shattering the myths that have unhelpfully animated too much of Alberta's politics over the past few decades. Current and former Alberta politicians are once again embracing and treating separatist grievances seriously. That means it's time once again to highlight and challenge political misconceptions that have the potential to destroy Canada. Oil is the root of one such myth. The misconception? That Ottawa perenially opposes the oil and gas sector and is determined to stop its continued growth. The National Energy Program (1980), the Northern Gateway pipeline project (2016), the Energy East Pipeline (2017) and the proposed greenhouse gas pollution cap allegedly prove Ottawa's hostility. Notably missing from these grievances is the Keystone XL pipeline and the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. Ottawa supported these projects aimed at transporting Alberta oilsands crude to foreign markets. The federal government even purchased the Trans Mountain project from Kinder Morgan in 2018 - not to kill it, but to build it. Read more: Justin Trudeau's risky gamble on the Trans Mountain pipeline As for Keystone XL, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney thanked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for supporting the project. This doesn't fit the separatist narrative, so it's largely ignored. No one should dispute the National Energy Program's devastating impact on Alberta's conventional oil and gas sector 40 years ago. But the oilsands, not conventional oil, propelled Canada to its position as the world's fourth largest oil producer. Has Ottawa facilitated or obstructed the spectacular post-1990 growth of oilsands production? The record shows that, since the mid-1970s, Ottawa has facilitated and supported the oilsands sector. The federal government helped keep the Syncrude project alive in 1975 when it took a 15 per cent interest in Canada's second oilsands operation. Ironically, Ottawa's enthusiasm for more, not less, petroleum from the oilsands also appeared in 1980 via the National Energy Program (NEP), the devil in Alberta's conservative catechism. What most accounts of the NEP don't mention is that Ottawa offered tax benefits to oilsands companies while stripping them from conventional oil producers. Furthermore, the NEP's "made-in-Canada" pricing effectively guaranteed Syncrude would receive the world price for its production. At $38 per barrel, Syncrude received more than double what conventional producers received. If the NEP was harsh on conventional oil producers, it helped create a golden future for the oil sands. In the mid-1990s, Ottawa helped propel the post-1995 oilsands boom. The industry-dominated National Task Force on Oil Sands Strategies sought federal tax concessions to promote oilsands growth. The federal government delivered them in its 1996 budget, despite Prime Minister Jean Chretien's general concern with cutting the deficit. Again, these measures clearly contradict the myth of federal opposition to the oil industry. Ottawa's policy favouritism towards the oilsands didn't end there. It has consistently animated the federal government's treatment of the oilsands in its climate change policies. The federal Climate Change Plan for Canada (2002) treated oil and gas leniently. Its measures for large industrial emitters bore a striking resemblance to the climate change policy preferences of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Suncor and Syncrude, the two leading oilsands producers, estimated these federal proposals would add a pittance, between 20 and 30 cents, to their per barrel production costs. Justin Trudeau's response to Alberta's 2015 oilsands emissions cap also underlined Ottawa's favouritism, not hostility, to the dominant player in Canada's oil patch. Rachel Notley's NDP government set this cap at 100 million tonnes of GHG per year, plus another 10 million tonnes allowed to new upgrading and co-generation facilities. This cap was a whopping 39 million tonnes or 55 per cent higher than what the oilsands emitted in 2014. This generous cap contributed to a tremendous increase in oilsands production. Healthy profits became record profits in 2022. Ottawa embraced Alberta's largesse, incorporating the province's cap into its post-2015 climate policies. Furthermore, Ottawa increased its leniency towards the oilsands by exempting new in-situ (non-mining) oilsands projects in Alberta from the federal Impact Assessment Act. This exemption applies until Alberta's emissions cap is reached. Canada's latest National Inventory Report on greenhouse gas emissions reported record oilsands GHG emissions of 89 million tonnes in 2023, still 11 million tonnes shy of the 100 million tonne threshold. Finally, we have today's proposed national cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Alberta is apoplectic about the cap. But whether or not it's intentional, Premier Danielle Smith's outrage feeds into secessionist sentiment by seemingly misrepresenting the cap's impact on oil and gas production. Smith and her environment minister use the work of the Parliamentary Budgetary Officer (PBO) to nurture their "Ottawa hates oil" narrative. They claim the officer's analysis of the cap's economic impact showed it "will cut oil and gas production by five per cent, or more than 245,000 barrels per day." This is simply not true. In fact, the PBO concluded that, with the cap, oilsands production "is projected to remain well above current levels" - 15 per cent higher than in 2022. The proposed federal emissions cap, like the Alberta NDP's cap of a decade ago, is higher than current oilsands emissions levels. The PBO concluded the proposed ceiling for oilsands emissions would be six per cent higher than 2022 emissions. Ottawa's proposed cap, in fact, continues its decades-long support of the oilsands. Myths are central to our being. When I tell my grandsons about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I hope to inspire curiosity, imagination and interest in their grandmother's Irish heritage. But in politics, fanciful stories can be dangerous. Some weaponize myths, using the fictions at their core to encourage followers to let falsehoods rule their behaviour. That seems to be playing out yet again in Alberta. We must demand better from the political class.
Canada Standard
08-05-2025
- Business
- Canada Standard
Alberta has long accused Ottawa of trying to destroy its oil industry. That's a dangerous myth
"Alberta is a place soaked in self-deception." Those words began Alberta-based journalist Mark Lisac's 2004 book aimed at shattering the myths that have unhelpfully animated too much of Alberta's politics over the past few decades. Current and former Alberta politicians are once again embracing and treating separatist grievances seriously. That means it's time once again to highlight and challenge political misconceptions that have the potential to destroy Canada. Oil is the root of one such myth. The misconception? That Ottawa perenially opposes the oil and gas sector and is determined to stop its continued growth. The National Energy Program (1980), the Northern Gateway pipeline project (2016), the Energy East Pipeline (2017) and the proposed greenhouse gas pollution cap allegedly prove Ottawa's hostility. Notably missing from these grievances is the Keystone XL pipeline and the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. Ottawa supported these projects aimed at transporting Alberta oilsands crude to foreign markets. The federal government even purchased the Trans Mountain project from Kinder Morgan in 2018 - not to kill it, but to build it. Read more: Justin Trudeau's risky gamble on the Trans Mountain pipeline As for Keystone XL, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney thanked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for supporting the project. This doesn't fit the separatist narrative, so it's largely ignored. No one should dispute the National Energy Program's devastating impact on Alberta's conventional oil and gas sector 40 years ago. But the oilsands, not conventional oil, propelled Canada to its position as the world's fourth largest oil producer. Has Ottawa facilitated or obstructed the spectacular post-1990 growth of oilsands production? The record shows that, since the mid-1970s, Ottawa has facilitated and supported the oilsands sector. The federal government helped keep the Syncrude project alive in 1975 when it took a 15 per cent interest in Canada's second oilsands operation. Ironically, Ottawa's enthusiasm for more, not less, petroleum from the oilsands also appeared in 1980 via the National Energy Program (NEP), the devil in Alberta's conservative catechism. What most accounts of the NEP don't mention is that Ottawa offered tax benefits to oilsands companies while stripping them from conventional oil producers. Furthermore, the NEP's "made-in-Canada" pricing effectively guaranteed Syncrude would receive the world price for its production. At $38 per barrel, Syncrude received more than double what conventional producers received. If the NEP was harsh on conventional oil producers, it helped create a golden future for the oil sands. In the mid-1990s, Ottawa helped propel the post-1995 oilsands boom. The industry-dominated National Task Force on Oil Sands Strategies sought federal tax concessions to promote oilsands growth. The federal government delivered them in its 1996 budget, despite Prime Minister Jean Chretien's general concern with cutting the deficit. Again, these measures clearly contradict the myth of federal opposition to the oil industry. Ottawa's policy favouritism towards the oilsands didn't end there. It has consistently animated the federal government's treatment of the oilsands in its climate change policies. The federal Climate Change Plan for Canada (2002) treated oil and gas leniently. Its measures for large industrial emitters bore a striking resemblance to the climate change policy preferences of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Suncor and Syncrude, the two leading oilsands producers, estimated these federal proposals would add a pittance, between 20 and 30 cents, to their per barrel production costs. Justin Trudeau's response to Alberta's 2015 oilsands emissions cap also underlined Ottawa's favouritism, not hostility, to the dominant player in Canada's oil patch. Rachel Notley's NDP government set this cap at 100 million tonnes of GHG per year, plus another 10 million tonnes allowed to new upgrading and co-generation facilities. This cap was a whopping 39 million tonnes or 55 per cent higher than what the oilsands emitted in 2014. This generous cap contributed to a tremendous increase in oilsands production. Healthy profits became record profits in 2022. Ottawa embraced Alberta's largesse, incorporating the province's cap into its post-2015 climate policies. Furthermore, Ottawa increased its leniency towards the oilsands by exempting new in-situ (non-mining) oilsands projects in Alberta from the federal Impact Assessment Act. This exemption applies until Alberta's emissions cap is reached. Canada's latest National Inventory Report on greenhouse gas emissions reported record oilsands GHG emissions of 89 million tonnes in 2023, still 11 million tonnes shy of the 100 million tonne threshold. Finally, we have today's proposed national cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Alberta is apoplectic about the cap. But whether or not it's intentional, Premier Danielle Smith's outrage feeds into secessionist sentiment by seemingly misrepresenting the cap's impact on oil and gas production. Smith and her environment minister use the work of the Parliamentary Budgetary Officer (PBO) to nurture their "Ottawa hates oil" narrative. They claim the officer's analysis of the cap's economic impact showed it "will cut oil and gas production by five per cent, or more than 245,000 barrels per day." This is simply not true. In fact, the PBO concluded that, with the cap, oilsands production "is projected to remain well above current levels" - 15 per cent higher than in 2022. The proposed federal emissions cap, like the Alberta NDP's cap of a decade ago, is higher than current oilsands emissions levels. The PBO concluded the proposed ceiling for oilsands emissions would be six per cent higher than 2022 emissions. Ottawa's proposed cap, in fact, continues its decades-long support of the oilsands. Myths are central to our being. When I tell my grandsons about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I hope to inspire curiosity, imagination and interest in their grandmother's Irish heritage. But in politics, fanciful stories can be dangerous. Some weaponize myths, using the fictions at their core to encourage followers to let falsehoods rule their behaviour. That seems to be playing out yet again in Alberta. We must demand better from the political class.
