Companies owing millions in taxes were allowed to skirt AER rules and acquire new wells
Originally published at Drill and Dash Report
By Phillip Meintzer, Coalition for Responsible Energy (C4RE)
Published February 4, 2026
Read the original post at Drill and Dash Report
(Alberta) - A new piece by the Investigative Journalism Foundation reveals that numerous Alberta oil and gas companies were granted well licenses by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) despite owing thousands in municipal taxes. These licences circumvented a March 2023 ministerial order authorizing the AER to block companies that were delinquent on taxes from acquiring new wells.
The AER regulations were intended to block the transfer of new well licences to companies that owed more than $20,000 in unpaid municipal taxes. According to the IJF investigation: “There were 130 companies exceeding that threshold in 2024 … twenty-one of these companies … were given new well licences.”
A few highlights of the IJF’s reporting on companies skirting the rules:
- In 2023, the AER approved the transfer of 407 well licenses to Blue Sky Resources, a company that now owes over $3 million in unpaid taxes across 15 municipalities;
- MAGA Energy Ltd. acquired 191 new well licences in 2024 and 2025, while their tax arrears doubled from $616,541 in 2021 to more than $1.2 million in 2024;
- Battle River Energy’s total tax arrears increased from $208,316 in 2021 to $602,316 in 2024. The AER approved the transfer of five wells to the company in October 2023.
As of the end of 2024, rural municipalities were cumulatively owed $254 million in unpaid taxes by oil and gas companies, up from $81 million in 2018. Kara Westerlund, president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) is quoted in the IJF report:
“The question that we’re asking is, how did this happen? Why are you allowing it? And what are you doing to stop it? And those questions still remain unanswered up to this date.”
Read the full IJF report here.
This post was originally published at Drill and Dash Report
Author: Phillip Meintzer, Coalition for Responsible Energy (C4RE)
Published: February 4, 2026
Take Action
This investigation exposes exactly how Alberta’s regulatory system allows tax-delinquent companies to keep acquiring new wells — while rural municipalities go unpaid.
- Read the full IJF report — The Investigative Journalism Foundation’s original investigation
- Write your MLA — Tell them you oppose the Mature Asset Strategy and demand the AER enforce its own rules
- Share this article — The more Albertans understand how the system works, the harder it is to push these policies through quietly