# The Great Alberta Swindle

> Interactive data investigation by Regan Boychuk into Alberta's oil and gas crisis.

## Overview

This site presents a decade of research into how Alberta's oil wealth was systematically extracted, leaving $260 billion in unfunded environmental liabilities, $121 billion in excess industry profits, and 300,000 unreclaimed oil wells. The research was conducted by Regan Boychuk through the Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project, the Parkland Institute, and Reclaim Alberta.

## URL

https://oil.what.trading

## Key Findings

- **Unfunded cleanup liabilities**: The Alberta Energy Regulator's own estimate ranges from $58 billion to $260 billion for wells, pipelines, and facilities across Alberta.
- **Unreclaimed wells**: 300,000 wells require remediation, each costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. 80% of operating wells no longer hold enough oil and gas to pay for their own cleanup.
- **Excess industry profits**: $121 billion in profits extracted beyond what a fair royalty regime would have allowed.
- **Royalty gap**: Alberta's government targeted 50 to 75% of resource rent but actually collected only 47.4% for conventional oil and just 8.9 to 14.6% for tar sands.
- **Fraudulent collateral**: $12.6 trillion CAD ($8.75 trillion USD) in reclassified Alberta bitumen reserves entered the global banking system, contributing to the 2008 financial crisis. 175 billion barrels were officially recognized as "proven" reserves on the same day US Marines completed the occupation of Baghdad.
- **RStar scheme**: A provincial program that uses public money to pay oil companies for cleaning up wells they were already legally obligated to remediate. Advocated for by Danielle Smith before she became Premier, then implemented by her government.
- **The Big Cleanup**: Enforcing the polluter-pays principle could create 58,000+ cleanup jobs and generate tens of billions in economic activity over 25 years.

## Sections

- Key Numbers: Dashboard of core statistics from the research
- Capital Flows: Sankey diagram showing how $525 billion in conventional production value (1999 to 2008) was distributed between costs, royalties, and industry profits
- Royalty Simulator: Interactive tool comparing Alberta's actual royalty rate (20%) to Norway's (78%) and the government's own target (50 to 75%)
- Timeline: Century of regulatory capture from the 1940 Ogdensburg Agreement through the RStar scheme
- Liability Crisis: Visualization of 300,000 unreclaimed wells, liability meters, and the "dine and dash" business model
- $12.6 Trillion Collateral: How reclassified bitumen reserves fueled the 2008 financial crisis
- RStar Scheme: How the program pays polluters with public money
- The Big Cleanup: Proposed solution enforcing the polluter-pays principle
- Network Map: Force-directed graph of connections between government, industry, regulators, and finance

## Author

Regan Boychuk, former public policy research manager at the Parkland Institute. Co-founder of Reclaim Alberta, the Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project, and the Polluter Pay Federation. Appointed to Alberta's 2015 Royalty Review Panel and participated in the 2017 Liability Management Review.

## Sources

All data is sourced from publicly available research, Freedom of Information (FOIP) requests, government records, the Alberta Energy Regulator, and peer-reviewed studies published through the Parkland Institute.

## Contact

info@what.trading
https://oil.what.trading/#contact