The Alberta government paid more than $30 million on behalf of delinquent oil and gas companies in 2024, The Narwhal has learned. The companies failed to pay rent owed to landowners for the use of their property for oil and gas activities.

This represents a 4,500 per cent increase in the amount of money the government is paying for these missed payments since 2010.

Companies are required to pay rents to landowners for oil and gas activity, whether to drill a well or install another related facility. When they don’t pay, landowners can apply to a tribunal to have those rents paid for by the province.

The payout is supposed to be a stopgap to make sure landowners aren’t out of pocket, with the government going after delinquent oil and gas companies to get them to repay the money.

In reality, that rarely happens.

Data obtained via a freedom of information request shows just $167,000 — less than half a per cent of the total paid out in 2024 — was recovered from oil and gas companies.

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