Schulich Study Challenges “Vulture Capital” Narrative in Alberta Oilpatch, Reveals More Troubling Reality
TORONTO – Wednesday, April 29, 2026 – New research from the Schulich School of Business is challenging conventional thinking about so-called “vulture capital” in Canada’s oil and gas sector – and raising ethical questions about the industry’s long-term environmental and social impacts.
Published in the Journal of Business Ethics, the study, “Vultures, Vampires, and Necro-waste in the Oil and Gas Industry,” finds that controversial investors operating in Alberta’s oilpatch are better understood not as “vultures,” but as “corporate vampires” – actors that extract value while transferring significant environmental and financial costs onto communities, governments and future generations.
The paper is co-authored by Schulich faculty members Jeff Everett, Dean Neu, Abu Shiraz Rahaman and Greg Saxton, alongside Schulich PhD researcher Minqi Liu and Kieran Taylor-Neu from the Alberta School of Business.
Drawing on a decade of government well-license reports and data covering more than 600,000 wells, the researchers examined how distressed oil and gas assets are bought, managed and often abandoned. Their findings point to a system in which a small group of corporate actors has accumulated wealth by acquiring aging or inactive wells at low cost, extracting remaining value, and leaving behind costly environmental liabilities.
“Our analysis suggests these actors are not simply cleaning up economic ‘remains,’ as the vulture metaphor implies,” said the authors. “Instead, they operate more like vampires – extracting value while externalizing harm.”
The research identifies several “social accountability pressure points” that could help address these challenges:
- Greater transparency around ownership, making it easier to identify who ultimately profits from distressed asset transactions
- Stronger liability frameworks, including mechanisms to hold original owners accountable for environmental cleanup
- Regulatory reforms that better align financial incentives with long-term environmental responsibility
The authors emphasize that meaningful change will require coordinated action from policymakers, regulators and industry stakeholders. “Our goal is not only to understand how these systems operate,” they note, “but to identify pathways toward more sustainable outcomes.”
