All information that companies operating in the energy sector must disclose to the GNWT will now be made public, a news release from the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment (ITI) said on Wednesday.
“Amendments to the Petroleum Resources Act and Oil and Gas Operations Act, including stronger transparency and accountability provisions, were passed in August 2019 by the 18th Legislative Assembly after an extensive public consultation process,” the government said. “With guidelines and communications materials now in place, these best-practice amendments took effect on July 23, 2020.”
Commercially sensitive information is an exception to the new regulation.
“These targeted amendments are an additional step forward in a longer-term process to modernize the oil and gas legislation for the NWT,” said ITI Minister Katrina Nokleby. “The federal laws that we mirrored after devolution in 2014 have served their intended purpose, but now we require amended laws that better meet today’s needs and priorities of our territory.”
Territory-wide, total aggregate oil production between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2019 came to 2,737,952 barrels.
For natural gas, the total aggregate production in the NWT was 2.5 billion cubic feet or 72 million cubic metres between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2019.