It has been three months since the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) first reported on the subsurface spills occurring at Canada Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) operations on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, 300 kilometres northeast of Edmonton. Yesterday Environment Canada told Postmedia’s Mike De Souza that the federal department “is currently assessing the situation with respect to federal environmental laws within its jurisdiction, and has opened an investigation.”

The underground leaks, discovered on four separate well pads, have been releasing a mixture of bitumen emulsion – a mixture of oil and water – uncontrollably since at least May, although AER reports suggest the spill has been ongoing for much longer. The regulator forced CNRL to suspend its high pressure cyclic steam stimulation (HPCSS) operations in one project area “earlier this year,” according to an AER incident report released in July.

HPCSS, also known as Huff and Puff technology, forces steam underground at extremely high pressures over prolonged periods of time. The high pressure steam softens underlying bitumen, a dense heavy crude and sand mixture found beneath large regions of the boreal forest, causing the viscous oil to separate from the sand. The pressure forms cracks in the bedrock, allowing the bitumen emulsion to flow through the wellbore and up to the surface.

The high pressures used in the process may be a factor in the underground leaks.

In a recent statement CNRL stated the company “believes the cause of the bitumen emulsion seepage is mechanical failures of wellbores in the vicinity of the controlled areas. We are in the process of identifying and investigating these wellbores.”

On Friday, AER spokesperson Bob Curran told DeSmog Canada, “we haven’t determined the cause of the spill at this time.”

According to AER figures released yesterday, 1275.7 cubic metres of bitumen emulsion have been recovered on all four spill sites. That equals just over 8023 barrels of oil or more than 1.2 million litres of oil. For comparison, the most expensive onshore oil spill in US history, when Enbridge’s Line 6B ruptured near the Kalamazoo River in Marshall, Michigan, released 3 million litres.

The AER announced a “subsurface investigation” was ongoing on August 20, 2013, although it is unrelated to any investigation currently being carried out by Environment Canada.

“When we say a subsurface investigation what that means is our investigation is focused on what subsurface problems have caused this spill to arise. There’s no category of subsurface investigations – it’s a generic terms that’s applied,” he said.

Both the AER and Alberta’s Energy and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) are investigating the spill, says Curran.

“[AER] is looking at the source of the problem and the company’s actions as they pertain to the issue. ESRD is looking more at impacts,” he said. “Environment Canada hasn’t contacted us about their investigation.”

Curran said he is unable at this time to comment on the scope of Environment Canada’s investigation or whether it will overlap with current efforts of AER or ESRD.

“Certainly our investigation is complimentary to ESRD’s on the provincial side,” he said.

Issues Manager Nikki Booth says ESRD is “working cooperatively” with Environment Canada although “the investigations will be complete separate because different pieces of legislation or contraventions are being investigated.”

AER, ESRD and Environment Canada each have their own independent investigation, she said. “We work with AER on theirs and they on ours – so it’s all very cooperative.”

“We have the EPEA (Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act) and the Water Act,” said Booth, which are the relevant pieces of legislation for the ESRD investigation. 

ESRD is not releasing much information at this time because the investigation is ongoing, says Booth. “We want it to be a fair and thorough process. Once the investigation is wrapped up there will be more information we can provide.”

According to an updated incident report released yesterday, August 29, “2 beavers, 40 birds, 101 amphibians, and 33 small mammals [are] deceased” as a result of the ongoing spill.

Image Credit: Emma Pullman

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The ongoing trouble on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range in North Eastern Alberta, where oil company Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) has numerous in situ oil recovery sites, has yet to show signs of abatement.

Underground oil spills on CNRL’s Primrose facility have been leaking bitumen emulsion into the muskeg, waterways and forest that surround the site for nearly three months.

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) says the total volume of bitumen emulsion recovered from four separate sites where the seepage is ongoing is now 1275.7 cubic metres, the equivalent of 8024 barrels of oil or 1.27 million litres.

The original volume of the spill was reported as 28 cubic metres.

In addition, 397 cubic metres of “oily vegetation” has been removed from one of the sites numbered 09-21, and 5096.66 metric tones of “impacted soils” have been removed from the other three.

“Clean up continues on all four sites,” says the AER in an updated incident report released yesterday.

“Bitumen recovery at the source, skimming of other areas within water body and vegetation cutting continues” at site 09-21.

“Bitumen recovery, soil removal, fissure exposure, surface water management and containment efforts continue” on the three additional sites.

CNRL, the company responsible for the spill, released a press statement on July 31 stating “each location has been secured and clean-up, recovery and reclamation activities are well underway.”

Last week Cara Tobin from the Alberta Energy Regulator said, “the spill is still ongoing. There is still bitumen coming up from the ground…it is not under control [because] bitumen is still coming up…”

She provided no comment Wednesday, indicating a revised incident report would be published Friday, August 15.

That report states “2 beavers, 31 birds, 82 amphibians, and 31 small mammals” have died as a result of the spill.

“Wildlife fencing and deterrents are installed and CNRL continues to monitor all four sites for wildlife and impacted wildlife.”

The exact cause of the uncontrolled spill has yet to be determined. CNRL cited mechanical failures at the well as a potential cause in its press statement, although Tobin from the AER said “we do not have the technical data or evidence to verify what that cause might be – what the cause or causes might be. We will determine that through our investigation process.”

According to the revised incident report a “subsurface investigation has been initiated and is ongoing.”

CNRL experienced a similar incident in 2009 on their Primrose site. According to Tobin that incident “was the same sort of thing where pressure pushed bitumen to surface and until that pressure was naturally able to recede underground the product continued to – very slowly – come to surface.”

Multiple investigations into the cause of the 2009 underground spill were inconclusive, although the Energy Resources Conservation Board (now the AER) stated “a contributing factor in the release may have been geological weaknesses in combination with stresses induced by high-pressure steam injection.”

CNRL uses a process called High Pressure Cyclic Steam Stimulation (HPCSS) in the region to release bitumen from underground rock formations. The process uses extremely high-pressure steam injection to fracture the underlying reservoir to “create cracks and openings through which the bitumen can flow back into the steam-injector wells,” according to the AER.

Roughly 80 percent of Alberta’s bitumen deposits will be extracted using this and other in situ methods.

Last week more than 20 groups called on the AER to conduct a public inquiry into the safety of in situ operations.

“While the AER has suspended and restricted steam injection operations at the CNRL Primrose operations in response to the most recent events, it is unacceptable to have long fissures in the ground that will continue to spill toxic heated bitumen to surface, and to further risk our water and groundwater resources from these activities,” said Carolyn Campbell, Conservation Specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association.

“The time has come for a broader inquiry into CSS and SAGD [steam assisted gravity drainage] steam injection operations,” she said.

Image Credit: Emma Pullman

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Last week, after a frenzy of press coverage of the ongoing underground bitumen seepage* at the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, CNRL, the company responsible for the spill, released a press statement suggesting the incident was contained.

“Each location has been secured and clean-up, recovery and reclamation activities are well underway,” the press release reads.

Cara Tobin from the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) says the spill is still ongoing and has yet to be brought under control.

“It’s ongoing. The spill is still ongoing. There is still bitumen coming up from the ground. With my language I would say it is not under control [because] bitumen is still coming up from the ground.”

The AER website has the incident officially listed as “ongoing” on its website.

“However,” says Tobin, “from a containment point of view CNRL has put up a perimeter around the extent of the impact on the surface and that surface impact is not getting any bigger. They have contained the extent of the spill.”

But beyond cordoning off the spill site, Tobin says, “it’s a release that is still ongoing. It is a very slow release but it is still ongoing.”

AER updated the total volume released on Friday to 1060 cubic metres – just over 6600 barrels of oil or more than 1 million litres. The volume of the Kalamazoo tar sands disaster, the largest and most expensive on shore oil spill in US history, was around 3 million litres.

The original incident report claimed only 28 cubic metres of oil were released.

Cold Lake bitumen release on CNRL's Primrose site. Courtesy of Emma Pullman.

“That volume grows every day, so it changes every day,” said Tobin.

A recent Alberta Primetime exclusive shows a large body of water affected by subsurface seepage of bitumen. CNRL incident commander Kirk Skocylas says one area of the spill is emerging from "a subsurface source" and "because it is within the water body we physically can't see where it is coming up." 

“Clean up is ongoing,” she added. “CNRL is working diligently to clean up the release.”

This spill, says Tobin, “is in the same operational area” as a similar release CNRL experienced in 2009. “These are releases coming up from basically cracks in the ground, not from the well pad.” CNRL told DeSmog Canada there is "absolutely no connection" between the 2009 incident and the ongoing release.

The Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board, now the AER, released a report in 2011, which found numerous investigations into the 2009 spill inconclusive, although several causes, such as underground fractures, were cited as possible explanations for the release.

As for the cause of CNRL’s current ongoing bitumen release, Tobin says it is too early to say what may be the cause.

Last week CNRL stated “mechanical failures of wellbores" were to blame for the spill although Tobin says “we do not have the technical data or evidence to verify what that cause might be – what that cause or causes might be. We will determine that through our investigation process.”

Image Credit: Emma Pullman

* An earlier version of this post described the underground bitumen release as a "geyser." Thanks to comments from our readers and members of the scientific community we've changed the wording to more accurately reflect the nature of the spill. We originally used the term geyser to denote the underground surfacing of liquid from a subsurface source, but now realise the term is technically inaccurate. 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Canadian Natural Resource Limited (CNRL), the company responsible for a massive ongoing spill on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range southeast of Fort McMurray released a public notice last week claiming the release was “secured” and that “clean-up, recovery and reclamation activities are well under way.”

Cara Tobin, Office of Public Affairs spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator, said that CNRL has yet to bring the release under control. 

The spill, caused by a rare underground spring of bitumen emulsion, is the result of High-Pressure Cyclic Steam Stimulation (HPCSS) technology that forces steam into underlying bitumen reservoirs at temperatures and pressures high enough to fracture underlying formations.

“I don’t want to presume what they mean by [secure] but I can tell you a few things that might help clarify,” she said.

Under usual circumstances with HPCSS heavy bitumen is softened by steam injected under the surface, allowing the resulting water and oil mixture – called bitumen emulsion – to surface up a wellbore. In this instance the high pressures underground are creating multiple bitumen springs, forcing the oil mixture to the surface in numerous locations including under a body of water.

“With any incident the company would go to the site and identify the outer boundaries of the affected area,” Tobin said.

“There’s two things – one is control and one is containment. What they have done, to the best of my knowledge, is that they have identified the outer extent of the impacted area, which is generally called delineation. I think they were finishing that process [Friday]. And so they are getting to know and rope off the outer extent of the impacted area.”

“So that’s one thing. And that’s basically containment…In this case, this is still an ongoing incident. There is no control on this incident.”

According to CNRL the area of initial impact is 20.7 hectares, or just over 51 acres. The spill volume to date, initially reported at 28 cubic metres, was updated to 950 cubic metres, or nearly 6000 barrels of oil, over the weekend.

“In this case because the incident is ongoing there will continue to be more volume of product coming up to the surface but it’s not going to be impacting any vegetation [other] than what’s already impacted…There will still be more volume of product but it’s not going to be spreading further,” she said.

She added that although this spill is “relatively unique,” an incident of its kind occurred previously on the same CNRL site.

“It’s not like it hasn’t happened before though. We have information on our website, about a similar incident that happened in 2009 and it was the same sort of thing where pressure pushed bitumen to surface and until that pressure was naturally able to recede underground the product continued to – very slowly – come to surface.”

Much like the 2009 incident, the cause of the current spill remains unknown and it is not expected to stop until underground pressure subsides.

“What we’re seeing in this one is that pressure has built up underground and is finding ways to come to surface and we don’t know what the cause of that might be. That will come out in our investigation report. But regardless, it is coming to the surface, very slowly, and it won’t stop until that pressure has gone down underground,” Tobin said.

The rate of the spill remains unreported at this time.

According to documents from the former Alberta Energy Conservation Board (ERCB), now the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), the 2009 release prompted the shut down of the site after bitumen emulsion was seen flowing out from the ground and pooling on the company’s Primrose East site.

A report on the incident says the bitumen emulsion could be observed seeping out of the ground to the south and the east of the well pad, as well as from surface fissures in the area.

The company initiated “emergency flowback to depressurize the formation” in an attempt to stem the release.

“Approximately 11,380 tonnes of solids (including snow, organic material, soil, and bitumen) was ultimately removed from the site for landfill disposal, and 904 cubic metres of bitumen was recovered from the surface of Pad 74 and transported to CNRL’s Wolf Lake Plant,” states the report.

Multiple investigations into the incident over the span of one year were inconclusive and could not ultimately determine how the bitumen emulsion made its way to the surface. The ERCB cited pre-existing unground fractures or a wellbore breach as possible explanations.

In its final summary the ERCB stated “a contributing factor in the release may have been geological weaknesses in combination with stresses induced by high-pressure steam injection.”

HPCSS creates fractures in underground formations to separate bitumen from sand. An AER incident report on the current CNRL release in Cold Lake describes HPCSS as a high-pressure steam injection method that fractures the reservoir to “create cracks and openings through which the bitumen can flow back into the steam-injector wells.”

Image Credit: Emma Pullman/CNRL

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