United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney speaks in front of the Trans Mountain Edmonton Terminal
Alberta hopes for better, prepares for worst
Conservatives’ first budget forecasts a slight uptick in most oil and gas industry measures, but also includes planning for a ‘doomsday scenario’
The governing United Conservative Party (UCP) released its first Alberta government budget in late October 24. The party’s focus is very much on fiscal discipline, as it sees better times ahead for the province’s economic bellwether oil and gas industry, but only slightly. And it also scenario planning a worst-case scenario for the industry. Conventional Albertan oil and gas production is forecast to remain relatively flat over the 2019-2022 fiscal years period (April 2019-March 2023), but raw bitumen production is expected to increase by 500,000bl/d to 3.5mn bl/d. This assumes Canadian midstreamer Enbridge’s 370,000bl/d Line 3 Replacement coming online by early 2021, the federally-owned 59
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