The OWA's budget has steadily increased in recent years in anticipation of the Sequoia assets, which has resulted in higher levies charged to industry.
And taxpayers have increasingly covered some of the cost to clean up aging wells, including the federal government's $1.7-billion commitment in 2020, which also aimed to provide stimulus for the oilfield service sector when oil prices crashed after the pandemic began.
lmao great gameplan
be charged "levee" to clean up all the shit I ruin as part of my business model
pay token amounts and don't actually do anything
wait for inevitable crisis to roll around once a decade so taxpayers give me $1.7 billion as "stimulus" so I don't have to actually pay for cleanup myself
Other oil industry shenanigans:
The case has its origins in the reorganization of Perpetual Energy in 2016. That Calgary-based company transferred many of its money-losing properties to an associated company. Then Sequoia, which was founded by a pair of Chinese investors that same year, acquired those assets in a deal for $1. Sequoia would go bankrupt in 2018.
PWC sought $217 million in damages from Perpetual. In 2021, while the bankruptcy battle was ongoing, Perpetual stored the majority of its assets into a new company called Rubellite Energy, which would have the same employees and office space as Perpetual.
"The Rubellite transactions and the proposed arrangement represent a radical solution to Perpetual's overwhelming financial problems: the establishment of Rubellite as a successor entity, free of Perpetual's obligations, to its creditors and other stakeholders," submitted PWC in a court filing. "Perpetual's shareholders receive clean shares in a 'pure' successor entity with 'no debt.'"
Perpetual chief executive Sue Riddell Rose described the move differently, calling it a way for "Perpetual shareholders to benefit through Rubellite to unlock the value of these high-quality assets while at the same time providing a full capital solution, reducing Perpetual's leverage and improving its liquidity to surface value from Perpetual's remaining asset base."
The creation of Rubellite was allowed, leaving Perpetual with a much lower value.
lmfao