CALGARY, Alberta, March 21 (Reuters) - A Canadian court has placed privately held Lexin Resources Ltd in receivership to sell off its assets, the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) said in a statement on Tuesday, weeks after the agency suspended licenses on all of the oil and gas company's facilities.
The receivership and suspension came after the AER said Lexin failed to comply with multiple orders, lacked enough staff to manage its more than 1,600 sites and owed more than C$70 million ($52.43 million). could not be reached for comment. A recording at a number listed for the company said the line had been disconnected.
Receivership means the 1,380 oil wells belonging to Lexin could join the more than 1,500 others in Alberta that do not have legal owners.
Such "orphan" wells are the responsibility of the provinces, and their numbers swelled when bankruptcies swept crude-producing Alberta province after the 2014 crash in the price of oil.
In the past, the Alberta government has said it could ask the federal government for help in covering costs. ($1 = 1.3350 Canadian dollars)