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The Alberta Energy Regulator has suspended the operations of beleaguered oil and gas company MAGA Energy for a raft of failures, including unpaid taxes, unpaid fees, improper care and closure of wells and failure to clean up spills.
Last fall an investigation from The Narwhal revealed the scope of the company’s issues, from its failure to pay landowners for wells on their land to significant tax arrears it owes municipalities.
The violations also highlighted failures at the Alberta Energy Regulator, which The Narwhal found approved the transfer of hundreds of wells and related infrastructure to the company in September 2024, when MAGA Energy owed more than $20,000 in taxes. This move was in violation of a ministerial order barring such transfers.
Before the transfer, The Narwhal learned the company had already been describing itself as “in survival mode.”
The regulator told The Narwhal in November last year the company “met the requirements to proceed” with the transfer, but refused to answer questions when provided evidence that it was in violation of the rules.
The suspension order notes the regulator was aware MAGA Energy had “outstanding debts to municipalities” and that it imposed extra oversight “which requires that applications regarding well licence transfers or new well applications … be reviewed through a non-standard process.”
The order suspending MAGA’s operations outlines a lengthy series of contraventions, including failed inspections, improper or non-existent remediation of contaminated land, failure to pay the Orphan Well Association levy, failure to pay municipal taxes, failure to pay minimum amounts for cleanup and a financial situation the regulator says has only gotten worse.
The regulator said based on the long list of contraventions that it “believes that it is necessary to suspend MAGA’s wells, facilities and pipelines in order to protect the public or the environment.”
MAGA Energy now has 14 days to suspend its wells, pipelines and facilities, pay its outstanding orphan levy and provide a security deposit for its failure to safely seal the required portion of its wells.
It has 30 days to submit a clean-up plan for contaminated sites and to begin that work, as well as to submit detailed plans to bring inactive wells into regulatory compliance and resolve all outstanding inspection failures.
MAGA Energy is also required to provide detailed progress reports to the regulator every month. The company can only restart operations if it fulfills all of the regulator’s demands and then only at the discretion of the regulator.