Pipeline construction needed badly


■ Continued from Page 5 Well drilling sites have also taken a significant hit due to the lack of


investment from around the world. Western Canada well sites for 2019 are projected to be lower than in the past few years,but Montgomery was hopeful by the end of 2019 the number would reach around the norm. “Last year,we drilled around 6,100 wells in Western Canada (Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba), (3,304) in Alberta.This year we are still projecting around 5,500 wells, which is obviously off sig- nificantly,but we make our projections fairly early in the year.” Last year,Manitoba saw 276 wells drilled, Saskatchewan had 2,135 and


B.C. only had 400.Meanwhile next year, the projections see 291 in Manitoba, 2,009 in Saskatchewan,419 in B.C. and 2,762 in Alberta. “Around 2008, there was a dramatic shrinkage in the number of gas


wells drilled and that was a reflection on what was going on in North America broadly,”added Montgomery. Stalled pipeline construction in Canada is also presenting a major chal- lenge to keeping oil flowing in the country. “Enbridge Line 3 is still facing court challenges in Minnesota.The


Canadian leg of that pipeline, which the majority of it has been built and is in the ground, it is just waiting for those issues to be sorted out. Oil, best-case scenario,will be flowing in 2021 in that pipeline.Keystone XL is going through its own court challenges, too.The best-case scenario for Keystone at this point is oil flowing in 2022.TransMountain, construction has started or will be shortly.They still have to get approval for their detailed route through British Columbia from the regulator.Some of the First Nations are in the midst of appealing the current approval for the project. Best-case scenario is 2022 for oil flowing.”


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Montgomery also touched on gas prices which have also continued to


see drops throughout the 2010s. “We have managed to stop some of the bleeding to the markets in the


northeast.We are working on some bottlenecks in the northern part of the province with TransCanada and the NGTL system which as we get that built out, will hopefully help with some of the volatility that we are dealing with on the market. Long-term though,we really need to get gas off the continent,”he explained. Montgomery also explained some producers have even had to pay out of pocket to get their product out. For the M.D., one aspect of the oil and gas industry that has raised the biggest concerns comes with the number of abandoned wells on leased land.CAPP estimates Alberta has around 90,000 abandoned wells, while B.C. has around 7,400 and Saskatchewan has nearly 26,000. With the M.D. experiencing plenty of inactive wells, they posed a ques-


tion around who is responsible for cleanup on the leased property. “That is what we want to avoid (environmental issues) by encouraging these to come off the landscape.Obviously, I can’t give you timelines on


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