Company Has Yet To Stop Leaks That Have Been Spilling Tar Sands In Alberta For 9 Months

From:  Climate Progress 

 By Katie Valentine

CREDIT: CNRL/Emma Pullman

Tar sands leaks in Alberta, Canada, that were reported last May — and may have started months earlier — still haven’t been stopped.

Now, a new report says more urgency needs to be placed on finding the cause of the leaks, which so far have expelled more than 12,000 barrels (or maybe even more) of tar sands mixed with water onto the forest floor, making the leaks the fourth-largest release of bitumen recorded in Alberta.

The report, published by Global Forest Watch Canada, looked at the May 20 spill at the Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) Primrose tar sands project near Cold Lake, Alberta, where four underground wells began leaking early last year. In October, the Alberta government ordered CNRL to find the cause of the leaks, which the company has since determined were due to faulty wellbores — a “technical, operational challenge that is totally solvable,” CNRL president Steve Laut said in November.

The company says it’s identified the wells behind the leaks and has so far found mechanical failures in two of them. But, as of January, the leaks still continued. The Alberta Energy Regulator is still investigating the cause of the leaks, however, and hasn’t come to a conclusion on what started them.

Spills like this, the report says, call into question the methods of cyclic steam stimulation, an in-situ form of extracting oil that pushes high-pressure steam underground, creating cracks in rock from which trapped oil can escape. This method is used at the Primrose facility, and is necessary to reach about 80 percent of Alberta’s tar sands.

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