Alberta expects to increase oil production limits in coming months

Alberta continues to ramp up its daily oil production.

Following Rachel Notley’s December 2018 announcement stating that the province would be slowing its oil production in an attempt to increase its value and deplete its stores, Alberta saw a decrease in oil production by 325,000 barrels per day as of January 1.

In the time since, the province has been slowly opening its taps, with increases to production limits being made throughout the end of Notley’s time as premier and into Kenney’s term.

The current limit sits at 3.76 million barrels of oil produced per day, though that is expected to jump up to 3.79 under a new curtailment policy that was announced in August, according to a release from the government of Alberta.

The new policy would allow for the first 20,000 barrels per day that a company produces to be exempt from the production limits, meaning that just 15 out of Alberta’s 300 producers are subjected to the production limits.

An increase of 10,000 barrels per day for Alberta as a whole will see that production jump to 3.80 million in November and 3.81 million barrels of oil produced per day in December.

“Letters from the Minister of Energy have been issued to each curtailed operator advising of the updated limit,” the release states.

Here’s what the per-day production limits were capped at since January of this year:

• January – 3.56
• February – 3.63
• March – 3.63
• April – 3.66
• May – 3.68
• June – 3.71
• July – 3.71
• August – 3.74
• September – 3.76
• October – 3.79
• November – 3.80
• December – 3.81