The Imperial Strathcona refinery near Edmonton
Alberta’s petrochemicals advantage
Canada’s oil hub looks to the future amid a supportive geological and investment environment
Alberta could “have one of the biggest petrochemical industries in the world”, the province’s premier, Danielle Smith, told the PetroChem Canada West conference in Calgary in early April. The Canadian province has received C$30b ($22b) in applications for its Alberta Petrochemical Incentives Program (APIP), which pays up to 12% of a project’s capital costs upon completion, since the programme was announced in October 2020, she said. To date, one project has been completed under APIP, Calgary-based Inter Pipeline’s C$5b Heartland Petrochemical Complex in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland (AIH) near Edmonton, in July 2022. “The operation is the only one of its kind in North America, offering the
Also in this section
13 March 2026
Brussels is again weighing a cap on gas prices amid the Hormuz crisis, but the measure could backfire by deterring the LNG cargoes Europe urgently needs
12 March 2026
Emergency oil stocks provide a last line of defence to oil market shocks, so the IEA’s unprecedented 400m bl release represents something of a double-edged sword
12 March 2026
LPG could rapidly expand access to clean cooking across Africa and prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths from indoor air pollution each year, but infrastructure shortages and regulatory barriers are slowing investment and market growth
11 March 2026
Missiles over Dubai and disruption in Hormuz are testing the emirate’s reputation—and shaking the energy hub at the centre of the Gulf economy
