“Traditional markets for Alberta natural gas are oversupplied. Prices, and therefore industry and government revenues, are crushingly low and have been increasingly volatile locally since the summer of 2017.”
That’s the first sentence in a report released yesterday by the Alberta government discussing the shape of the province’s natural gas industry. The report is the the work of the government appointed Natural Gas Advisory Panel who’s mandate was to provide advice and recommendations to the Minister of Energy on near term actions Alberta could take to improve outcomes and interests related to natural gas. The panel included Hal Kvisle, Brenda Kenney, and Terrence Kutryk.
“Natural gas producers have been under tremendous capital strain since July 2017,” said an executive at an Alberta natural gas producer. “When Trans Canada suddenly and without warning changed how it operated the NOVA gas system here in Alberta, the result has been an extremely volatile gas market in Alberta with a number of producers facing some very difficult decisions. This will only get worse in 2019.”