Tallahassee Exploration Inc., Receivership

Tallahassee Exploration Inc., an oil and gas company with assets across Western Canada, was placed in receivership on October 23 on application by the Orphan Well Association (“OWA”) and the British Columbia Energy Regulator (“BCER”).

Tallahassee holds licenses for hundreds of oil and gas wells, pipelines and facilities across Alberta and BC issued by the Alberta Energy Regulator (“AER“) and BCER respectively.

After the company failed to comply with various orders issued by the AER, the AER ordered Tallahassee to abandon its oil and gas assets in November 2023. Since that time, the OWA has been working to provide reasonable care and measures to Tallahassee’s licenced assets.

In the course of its work, the OWA has identified a number of serious safety concerns due to, among other things, the company failing to properly shut-in the licensed assets.

The AER estimates that there are approximately $88.6 million in deemed liabilities associated with the assets, as well as $13 million outstanding to known creditors.

The OWA and BCER sought to appoint a receiver to facilitate their regulatory mandate to prevent the public from bearing the cost of Tallahassee’s end of life obligations.

PwC is the receiver.

Counsel is MLT Aikins for the OWA and DLA Piper for the BCER.