Land Sales Display Optimism in Alberta, NWT

摘要

Oil prices that seem stuck around US$100 per barrel, a reformed royalty regime in Alberta, the best prospects ever for the Mackenzie Gas Project in the Northwest Territories and the generally optimistic attitude historically borne by oil and gas operators when technology has opened up new plays have combined to generate record land sales recently in both Alberta and the Northwest Territories. The late May land sale in Central Alberta yielded C$842 million (US$888 million). It covered about 670,000 acres mostly in the area northwest of Red Deer, southwest of the provincial capital of Edmonton. The region has more than a dozen potential producing formations, the most prospective of which are the Cardium, source of sought after light crude, and deeply buried liquids-rich Duvernay shale gas.