Old Salty tamed — after 87 years

Gary Park

Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

Just as the Mounties always get their man and the mail always gets through, Alberta always brings its rogue wells under control.

Sometimes it just takes a while.

The Peace River Oil Company No. 1 well — first licensed in October 1915 and best known by locals as Old Salty — blew out in 1916 and again in 1982 before a team of industry associations and government authorities finally managed to plug and abandon the hole in September.

The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board believes the blowout was the longest running in North America, if not the world, and cost C$5 million to snuff out.

The costs were covered under the Orphan Well Association, which was formed in 1998 to manage all wells in the province that have long since been abandoned by operators, many of whom no longer exist.

To ensure that companies can’t walk away from blowouts, first-time well licensees are required to contribute C$10,000 to an orphan well fund. Thus Old Salty was never a drain on the public purse.

The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board will continue to monitor the environmental impact of the well, which has flowed 36,000 barrels per day of salt water into northwestern Alberta’s Peace River over the past 20 years.

For now it is confident that river’s flow rate was sufficient to easily dilute the salt.