Alberta Revamps Oil And Gas Royalty Framework

In 2009, in the wake of a changing economy, a slowdown in oil and gas well drilling and a new but much criticized royalty regime, the Government of Alberta launched a competitiveness review (the Review) with a focus on upstream natural gas and conventional oil development. The results of this Review and the Government of Alberta's policy response were released on March 11, 2010 in its publication Energizing Investment - A Framework to Improve Alberta's Natural Gas and Conventional Oil Competitiveness (the Competitiveness Framework).

By comparing Alberta's investment competitiveness with other key jurisdictions, namely British Columbia and Saskatchewan in Canada and Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Wyoming in the United States, the Review revealed that, though still a dominant player in the energy business, Alberta has lost competitive ground in relation to its peers in the conventional oil and gas industry.