Today, the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) released the 2026 Alberta Energy Outlook (ST98), its annual assessment of Alberta's energy resources, production, and market outlook.
This comprehensive review of Alberta's energy sector includes a look back at 2025 and a 10-year market-based forecast covering energy prices, oil and gas production and demand, reserves, capital expenditures, energy infrastructure, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). The report also examines Alberta's emerging energy and resource sectors, including hydrogen, geothermal, helium, and lithium.
Report highlights
- Alberta remains Canada's largest producer of natural gas and oil. In 2025, Alberta accounted for 60% of Canada's natural gas production and 84% of Canada's oil equivalent production. Crude oil and equivalent production increased by 4% to reach 4.4 million barrels per day.
- Total capital expenditures for crude oil, natural gas, oil sands, and emerging resources reached $32.4 billion in 2025, the highest level in the past decade, reflecting continued investment confidence in Alberta's energy sector.
- Global energy markets were influenced by significant geopolitical developments in 2025 and 2026, including changes in U.S. energy and environmental policy, a Canadian federal-provincial memorandum of understanding supporting oil production growth and pipeline capacity, and conflict in the Middle East beginning in February 2026 that disrupted global energy supplies.
For more information and to access the full report, executive summary, infographic, and interactive data, visit ST98: Alberta Energy Outlook 2026. This interactive online format allows users to customize and create graphs using reported data.
New this year, the AER’s 2025/26 Annual Report, which was also released today, includes the Alberta Energy Outlook summary.
For questions related to the AER report, contact inquiries@aer.ca.
