Alberta’s draft methane regulations appear to contradict agreement-in-principle signed 48 hours earlier

CALGARY — AMANDA BRYANT, manager of the Pembina Institute’s oil and gas program, made the following statement in response to the release of draft new methane regulations from the Alberta Energy Regulator:

“The draft methane regulations released by the Alberta Energy Regulator today are markedly different than the steps Alberta committed to taking in their agreement-in-principle with the federal government, released earlier this week. It is difficult to reconcile Wednesday’s announcement with these draft regulations.

“The agreement-in-principle, signed two days ago, committed Alberta and Ottawa to an outcomes-based equivalency process. While Alberta has a right to design its own regulation, it must result in equal emissions reductions as the federal rules. Yet Alberta’s draft regulation is clearly weaker than the federal one in several key respects.

“As one example, the national regulations prohibit routine venting across the board. While there has been some marginal improvement in coverage of venting from one specific source, Alberta’s regulations still only place a limit on venting volumes, with no indication in the regulation of where the rest of those emissions reductions will come from.

“We would not expect this draft regulation to be deemed legally equivalent under the forthcoming equivalency process, but we encourage all parties to keep working towards strong methane regulations in Alberta. Methane abatement remains one of the lowest-cost options available to reduce emissions from oil and gas production, and does so using proven technologies, creating jobs and investment.”

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