Brad Wall says he won't raise royalties

This is from the CBC. Hardly any surprise here. What is a bit ludicrous is the NDP complaint. During the election campaign the NDP resolved not to raise royalties; also, the NDP was the last party to cut the royalties to make Saskatchewan competitive. Sounds a bit like the Sask. Party to me. If the NDP wants to get back in power it had better clean the barn of the right wing manure they have collected.


Wall says he won't raise royalties
Last Updated: Friday, January 18, 2008 | 5:12 PM CT
CBC News
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall says his government will be reviewing oil royalty rates, but not with a view to raising them like Alberta did.

"The government will be clear that the only changes that we will be interested in will be those that make us more competitive, not less competitive," Wall said earlier in the week. "We don't see them going up, is the short answer to the question."

Wall is on his way to Calgary to tout Saskatchewan as a place where oil companies should want to do business.

The Alberta government recently decided to increase total royalties from oil and gas by $1.4 billion — or 20 per cent above projected revenue — in 2010. That followed an advisory report that said skyrocketing oil prices were handing huge windfall profits to the industry while the Alberta citizens who owned the resources were getting shortchanged.

Alberta's oil companies have expressed fury over the changes, with some threatening to cut back on investment in response.

Saskatchewan's NDP government cut royalties six years ago, adding some more cuts a few years later, in order to stay competitive with Alberta.



NDP Leader Lorne Calvert said what Wall is proposing now doesn't make a lot of sense.

"How can you ask credible citizens to do a review, but say … 'If it is your conclusion that there needs to be some adjustment upward in certain areas, it's not on?'"

Meanwhile, University of Regina economist Gary Tompkins said Wall shouldn't rule out raising oil royalty rates, at least on existing wells.

Tompkins said it isn't necessarily fair to the people of Saskatchewan to rule out all royalty hikes.

"If you take the view that the oil ultimately belongs to the people of Saskatchewan, what we want to do is get people to come in, take it out of the ground and then give it to us," Tompkins said.

"We pay them for their work, but we don't want to give them any extra."

If existing wells were profitable when oil was $40 a barrel, they are more than profitable now with oil hovering near $100 a barrel, he said.
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