Letter from Canada: Alberta waits for a boom that may not come
The Edmonton administration assumes that there will be another oil bull cycle. It may be wrong
The Alberta government has been running large budget deficits since the middle of the last decade, with both the leftist New Democratic Party and now the rightist United Conservative Party waiting for the next oil price boom to bail out the province. Instead, Alberta got another—albeit brief—oil price war earlier this year that was followed by the coronavirus-induced global economic depression. These events have caused Alberta’s projected deficit for the fiscal year 2020-21 to skyrocket, leaving Premier Jason Kenney with a simple choice: get the province’s fiscal house in order through a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes once the worst of Covid’s economic destruction has passed, or
Also in this section
24 January 2025
Domestic companies in Nigeria and other African jurisdictions are buying assets from existing majors they view as more likely to deliver production upside under their stewardship
23 January 2025
The end of transit, though widely anticipated, leaves Europe paying a third more for gas than a year ago and greatly exposed to supply shocks
23 January 2025
The country’s government and E&P companies are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to increase domestic crude output as BP–ONGC tie-up leads the way
22 January 2025
The return of Donald Trump gives further evidence of ‘big oil’ as an investable asset, with the only question being whether anyone is really surprised
