The Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board has released its 2012 Tailings Management Assessment Report, Oil Sands Mining Industry.
It concludes:
6 Conclusions Industry performance over the 2010/2012 reporting period has not met the original expectations of Directive 074. However, the ERCB notes that all operators have committed significant resources towards managing their tailings in accordance with the objectives of Directive 074, made material progress in developing and implementing fines capture technologies as part of their tailings management plans, and integrated tailings management with mine planning and bitumen production activities. The fines capture performance indicates that the expectations of the ERCB and industry were optimistic. The commercial implementation of tailings management technologies will take longer than expected and performance will be lower than expected until operational problems are resolved.