ERCB Tailings Directive Backgrounder

Why did the ERCB conduct a technical review with industry on the Directive before consulting with other stakeholders?

• On regulatory matters with a significant technical content, the ERCB has usually included a technical review with industry as part of our process.

Who would this Directive apply to?

• It applies to all existing, approved, and future oil sands operators.

What are tailings?

• “Tailings” is a term used to describe waste from oil sands extraction processes. This waste is generally composed of water, sands, silt, clay and residual bitumen. Alberta’s inventory of fluid fine tailings that require long term containment is now 720 million cubic metres.

What will be the enforcement for non-compliance with the directive?

• Tailings directive requirements will be enforced in accordance with Directive 19: ERCB Compliance Assurance-Enforcement.

What is the two-month feedback period designed to do?

• During the feedback period (from the release of the draft directive until September 15, 2008), ERCB staff will be accessible to answer any questions industry and stakeholders may have about the draft directive. Stakeholders (including industry) will have the option to contact the ERCB to schedule meeting times to discuss the directive.

Why do this now? Wasn’t the ERCB mandated to develop this criterion years ago?

• The task to address tailings management was first assigned to ERCB staff by Board panels in the 2003/2004 mineable oil sands hearings/decisions. The ERCB has taken the time to work with its own staff to ensure a directive was developed that is both achievable by industry and acts in the public interest to help manage tailings accumulation.

How much of Alberta’s oil sands are recoverable through surface mining?

• About 18% of Alberta’s 173 billion barrels of remaining established reserves of bitumen are recoverable through surface mining.  The remaining 82% of oil sands bitumen is recoverable by in situ methods, such as steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), which leaves a smaller environmental footprint.

How much boreal forest has been cleared or mined by oil sands companies?

• 470 square km of boreal forest. 

How large are the tailings ponds? 

• The ERCB estimates tailings ponds today are approximately 130 square km.

What else is the ERCB doing with regulation of the oil sands?

• The ERCB has changed the structure of our organization to deal with the oil sands.  And over the last three years, it has embarked on an evolution of its regulations pertaining to the oil sands.

• Last December, the ERCB signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Alberta Environment to coordinate groundwater protection efforts in a number of areas, such as oil sands thermal and mining operations.

• Earlier this year, the ERCB began a major update of its oil sands inspection process for mining and processing plant operations.  Bulletin 2008-16 will mean more inspections, and a more proactive approach with clearer expectations for industry and the public. The ERCB plans on doubling the number of inspections in the area’s oil sands mine sites in the coming year. This coming year, the ERCB’s Fort McMurray office will hire four or five new inspectors to conduct these updated surveillance activities.

• Last October the ERCB released Directive 54 �- Performance Presentations, Auditing, and Surveillance of In-Situ Oil Sands Schemes. It is a more detailed and much tougher set of requirements for annual reporting of in situ projects.

• And the ERCB is also working under - and enforcing - Directive 42, which is an evolution of measurement, accounting and reporting requirements for thermal bitumen schemes.