The Intellog Blog

A recent post to this blog provided the details of a request Intellog made in accordance with Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Privacy Act (FOIP).  The objective of this request was to obtain a copy of the General Well Data File, along with updates so that the data can be freely distributed to any interested party.

To their credit, the ERCB’s FOIP Coordinator provided a very timely, written response to the request, which can be found here, or by clicking the PDF logo at bottom right.  Unfortunately, however, they have chosen to reject the request based on 29(1)(a.1) of the Act.  This states, in part, “[t]he head of a public body may refuse to disclose to an applicant information…that is available for purchase by the public.”

Conveniently, the letter also describes the procedure used to request a review of the decision by the Information and Privacy Commissioner.  This will be an avenue which we will not hesitate to pursue, subject to some additional review of the ERCB’s decision, and the Act itself.

The complete series of letters related this effort has been posted on this blog previously.  As always, you are welcome and encouraged to provide comments below.

Alberta Petroleum & Natural Gas Public Offerings for 2010-05-19 are now available.  This data is formatted in CSV and is ready for upload to Accumap.  The file can be downloaded here or by clicking the CSV icon, bottom right.

If you would like to be notified by email as soon as the reformatted CSV files are available in the future, please contact us or leave a comment below, and we will be happy to add you to our guaranteed spam-free email notification list.  There is no charge for this service.

Background information can be found here, and please let us know what you think.  Thanks for your interest and support.

Since early 2008 – well over two years – Intellog has attempted to pry well data out of the hands of the ERCB and make it available to the general public at no charge.   The series of letters related this effort has been posted on this blog previously.  Sadly, this effort has not met with success to date.

The next step is to make use Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Privacy (FOIP) Act to oblige the ERCB to release the information so it can be freely downloaded by any member of the general public.   The request and the covering letter can be found here, or by clicking the PDF logo, bottom right.

The request is for of the General Well Data File described on page 30 of the Catalogue of Publications, Maps and Services.  At present, there is an initial fee of $66,491 plus an annual fee of $13,183 to receive monthly updates for this data.  This is entirely beyond the means of an overwhelming majority of Albertans, and effectively denies them access to the information to which they have a proprietary right.

First and foremost, the purpose of the Act is “to allow any person a right of access to the records in the custody or under the control of a public body”.  While there may be provisions within the Act which will be cited as a basis for maintaining the status quo, it is our firm belief that none of them trump Albertan’s fundamental rights, under the Act, to access this information as they see fit.

The response to Intellog’s request will, of course, be the subject of a future post to this blog.  As always, you are welcome and encouraged to provide comments below.

Alberta Petroleum & Natural Gas Public Offerings for 2010-05-05 are now available.  This data is formatted in CSV and is ready for upload to Accumap.  The file can be downloaded here or by clicking the CSV icon, bottom right.

If you would like to be notified by email as soon as the reformatted CSV files are available, please contact us or leave a comment below, and we will be happy to add you to our guaranteed spam-free email notification list.  There is no charge for this service.

Background information can be found here, and please let us know what you think.  Thanks for your interest and support. 

Recently, a letter to the new Alberta Energy Minister, Ron Liepert, was written to continue the campaign to make petroleum well identification information freely available to the general public.  Minister Liepert’s response can be found here, or by clicking the PDF logo at the bottom right of this post.

It was felt that a new Minister of Energy might engender a new approach.  What’s stunning is how similar Minister Liepert’s response is to the letter provided by the former Minister, back on 2008-05-29.  In fact, it  seems the new letter could have been written simply by referring to the old letter, and dispensing entirely with the need to actually evaluate whether there might be alternatives to the current policy.

Clearly, this is going to be more difficult than first imagined.  Your thoughts and are welcome and encouraged and thank you very much for your support.

The ERCB’s February 2010 Well Licenses Issued (ST1, sample), Drilling Activity (ST49, sample), and Pipeline Approval & Disposition Daily List (ST96, sample) have been added to the Onramp search engine.  These reports, along with every ST1, ST49 and ST96 issued since 2001 (over 9600 documents) have been indexed so they can instantly be retrieved by simple keyword search.   Click here to start.

If you have suggestions for other data you would like to see added to Onramp, or any other feedback, please leave a comment below, or contact us directly.