A Message from the
Honourable Blaine Pedersen Minister of Agriculture and Resource Development On behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Resource Development, I am honoured to join Premier Brian Pallister in highlighting the successes of Manitoba’s oil & gas industry. It is a particular honour to be a part of Manitoba’s 69-year legacy of oil production. Today, Manitoba’s oil & gas sector is an important contributor to the economy of our province and is an economic driver for the Westman region in particular. In 2019, there were 3,391 total producing wells and 222 new wells drilled. We are pleased to note that this exceeded the five-year running average of 210 wells drilled per year. Last year’s total industry expenditures accounted for a $350 million industry investment in our province in the areas of exploration, production, and servicing. Manitoba oil production has increased year over year since 2013 and in 2019.
While the industry faces challenges due to the Russia-Saudi Arabia price war and the impacts of Covid-19, we want to ensure Manitoba is in a positive position for when these international pressures end and we can return to a business-as-usual environment. Manitoba is responding to industry on issues related to low commodity prices for oil & gas by extending Crown mineral leases for one additional year upon application, as well as extending well licenses to be valid from one year to two years. Manitoba continues to improve on our delivery of technical well and geophysical log files − files industry relies on to drive exploration. We continue to work with industry on improvements to the petroleum fiscal regime. We are also collaborating with our federal counterparts to ensure that our Mani-
toba stakeholders can take advantage of the recent federal funding announcement for the $1.7 billion program to clean up orphaned/abandoned wells and inactive wells. The announcement includes a $750 million Emission Reduction Fund for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are proud to join our Western Provinces in the adoption of the Petrinex Oil & Gas reporting system, the standard platform used across all oil & gas-producing provinces to report production volumes from oil & gas wells to the regulators. Our government has budgeted over $2.1 million for the implementation of this system, which is set to “go live” in May 2020. Thank you to Alberta’s Petrinex support team and our industry partners for all the hard work done in cooperation with Manitoba’s implementation team. This year we plan to move this to the next level by introducing an online tax and royalty calculator. This will make reporting easier, reduce red tape, and eliminate any over- or underpayments of royalties and taxes to the crown. We are continuing with our offering of Crown oil & gas rights on May 13, 2020 and have taken steps to ensure that our stakeholders and staff can safely proceed with this offering. This represents the continuation of the province’s 22-year history of having four offerings per year.
NORBERT’S THE LEADER IN
As Manitobans, we are fortunate to be
Flatdeck Trailers for the Oilfield Industry
positioned with natural resource sectors
204-827-2015 | www.Norberts.ca
that play an important role in the global
A BD Manufacturing Division
economy. Thank you to the essential workers of the oil & gas sector. v
12
Manitoba Oil & Gas Review 2020
