Meta's $13-billion Sturgeon County AI data centre — and the $4.6-billion gas plant built to power it — is going up a few kilometres from dozens of oil and gas leases that were plugged but never reclamation-certified.
Meta broke ground in July 2026 on its first Canadian data centre, at 56111 Range Road 223 in rural Sturgeon County, north of Edmonton. The project is paired with a separate $4.6-billion natural gas power plant on the same site. The province has projected roughly $250 million a year in royalties, taxes, levies, and transmission fees once it's running.
Public town halls on the project this month, in Sturgeon County and neighbouring Redwater, drew hostile crowds — residents raised concerns about water use, land, and power draw, and pressed officials on why they'd learned the details so late. What hasn't been part of that conversation is what's already sitting on the land nearby.
Sturgeon County currently carries 412 abandoned, unreclaimed oil and gas leases across 67 operators. "Abandoned" on the Alberta Energy Regulator's register means a well has been physically plugged — it does not mean the surface lease was ever closed out, or that reclamation was certified. Those leases can stay legally live for years with nothing on the public record flagging it.
Using the site's published coordinates (Alberta's own Major Projects listing marks these as approximate, not exact), there are 19 abandoned, unreclaimed leases within 8 kilometres — 11 of them in Sturgeon County itself, and 8 just across the line in neighbouring Strathcona County, which also borders the project site. All 19 sit at surveyed well locations; none is an estimated position.
| Operator | Leases within 8km | Closest |
|---|---|---|
| Long Run Exploration Ltd. | 7 | 3.4km |
| Conifer Energy Inc. | 5 | 6.0km |
| Imperial Oil Resources Limited | 2 | 4.4km |
| Novagas Canada Ltd. | 1 | 3.1km |
| Cenovus Energy Inc. | 1 | 4.4km |
| Baytex Energy Ltd. | 1 | 5.4km |
| Sinopec Canada Energy Ltd. | 1 | 6.6km |
| Rush Resources Ltd. | 1 | 7.5km |
Legal locations, distances, and county assignments are drawn from public AER well and lease records. County boundaries are matched against Alberta's official municipal boundary data. This is a record search, not an assertion about any operator's current obligations, finances, or conduct.
A well is marked "Abandoned" once it's been physically plugged and is no longer producing. That's a separate step from reclamation, where the surface is restored and the operator applies for a reclamation certificate closing out the lease. Until that certificate is issued, the lease can remain legally in force — meaning the landowner's compensation obligations under the Surface Rights Act don't automatically end just because the well went quiet.
Alberta's Surface Rights Act has a process for this. Under section 36, a landowner who hasn't been paid the compensation owed under a surface lease can apply to the Land and Property Rights Tribunal. Start at alberta.ca/land-property-rights-tribunal, or call the Farmers' Advocate Office at 780-427-2433 — they help Alberta landowners with exactly this, at no cost.
Novacq tracks every abandoned well in Alberta against its surface lease and Land and Property Rights Tribunal history. Across the province that's 81,100 leases held by 803 operators. Ask and we'll send the breakdown for your county — how many leases, who holds them, and which of those operators have payment-default decisions on record at the Tribunal. No charge.
REQUEST YOUR COUNTY'S RECORD →