Existing heavy oil and bitumen operators in the Peace River area will have to capture their produced gas by mid-August and new ones by May 15th.
That’s just one of the recommendations from the hearings into odours and emissions from those operations that the Alberta Energy Regulator has accepted.
Chief Economist for the Energy Resources Conservation Board Carol Crowfoot explains it has also released a revised directive on flaring, incinerating, and venting reducing the impacts and increasing gas conservation opportunities.
“There would be flaring that would occur, but would end as soon as we can get then the gas conservation plans in place, so we’re obviously going to move very quickly on that, but we will wait for the report from the operators to determine what that’s going to look like.”
Operators will be conducting a feasibility study on capturing all gas in the region, due by October, for the AER to then take action on.
Companies who don’t comply with all of the new requirements could have their wells shut down.