Site Rehabilitation Program

Overview

The Site Rehabilitation Program (SRP) was a provincial program available through the Alberta government, allowing the province to access up to $1 billion from the federal government’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan. The SRP provided grants to oil field service contractors to perform well, pipeline and oil and gas site closure and reclamation work.

The program goals were to:

• immediately get Alberta’s specialized oil and gas labour force back to work
• accelerate site abandonment and reclamation efforts
• quickly complete a high volume of environmentally-significant work

Site nomination process

The Landowner and Indigenous Community Site Nomination process established for the SRP is also no longer accepting nominations. Through this process, 3,457 well sites were nominated by individuals and communities for clean up and 1,741 of those sites were approved for work activity through the program.

Sites that did not receive approval for SRP funding were transferred to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) for consideration in its Closure Nomination Program. The Closure Nomination Program was officially launched on April 3, 2023, and is one part of the liability management changes that were announced in 2020. More information about the Closure Nomination Program can be found on the AER website.

Results achieved

Overall, the SRP was a resounding success. It supported economic activity and employment of oil field service companies during an economic downturn while accelerating the abandonment and reclamation of inactive oil and gas wells in Alberta.

The SRP allocated $1 billion in grant funding periods for closure work on oil and gas sites in Alberta. This funding was provided through 8 grant funding periods, each with its own criteria and guidelines.

In total, $863 million in grant funding was paid for closure work on 46,705 sites – including well sites, pipeline segments and facilities – which was allocated to more than 560 Alberta-based companies. This funding led to the creation of approximately 4,135 jobs, as estimated by oil field services companies in their invoice submissions.

In addition, the work generated through the SRP ensured that Indigenous businesses and communities had a meaningful role in the post-pandemic energy strategy as partners in prosperity. For example, in the grant funding Period 6, $133.33 million in funding was made available for inactive sites on reserve and on settlement. In total, $107.5 million was spent in Period 6. Indigenous businesses were also encouraged to apply for funding available in other grant periods.

Alberta also made $100 million available in grant funding Period 8 for Species at Risk closure work, directed towards habitats with Sage Grouse, native trout and caribou in specific geographic areas. In total, $65.4 million was spent in Period 8.

Applications

• 75,140 completed applications were submitted
• 75,140 applications were processed (covering grant periods 1 through 8)
  • 10,471 applications were re-assessed under reassessment Period 1B
• 34,963 applications were approved and completed their grant agreements
  • 3% of approved grant funding was for abandonment work, representing $486 million in funding
  • 7% of approved grant funding was for remediation and reclamation work (including Phase 1 and 2 environmental site assessments), representing $377 million in funding
• 11,567 Indigenous company applications were approved
• 19,946 wells were approved for abandonment
• 14,775 well sites were approved for phase 1 environmental site assessment
• 5,286 well sites were approved for phase 2 environmental site assessments
• 11,961 well sites were approved for reclamation
• 1,145 well sites were approved for remediation

Well sites

This list provides a summary of oil and gas sites with closure work funded through the SRP.