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Canadian land sales attract 466 buyers in first half of 2004
Gary Park
Government auctions of petroleum and natural gas rights challenge any notion of an industry in decline across Canada, with 466 different companies spending almost C$700 million to lock up rights in the first half of 2004.
And there has been no sign of the pace slackening since the mid-point of the year.
Operating on behalf of undisclosed clients, brokers were two of the most active buyers to the end of June. Scott Land & Lease and Standard Land purchased 1.02 million acres and 270,000 acres for C$155.93 million and C$52.84 million, respectively. Top three are Contact, EnCana, Paramount Topping the list of companies buying land in their own name were: Contact Exploration 370,000 acres (due mainly to some onshore New Brunswick purchases), EnCana 342,000 acres; Paramount Resources 334,700 acres (after transferring the bulk of its assets into an income trust); Canadian Natural Resources 90,105 acres; Husky Energy 82,500 acres; Shell Canada 66,600 acres; Devon Canada 38,300 acres and Burlington Resources Canada 25,300 acres.
Alberta’s latest auction fetched C$33.6 million for 291,000 acres, pushing year-to-date returns to C$667.5 million, 25 percent ahead of the same time last year, although the total amount of land changing hands is up only marginally at 4.74 million acres against 4.62 million acres last year.
British Columbia also garnered an impressive C$22 million in its most recent sale involving 97,500 acres. Saskatchewan lags behind Saskatchewan notched C$10.5 million from its August auction, bringing its total revenues for the year to C$47.2 million, lagging well behind last year’s C$106.6 million.
However, Industry and Resources Minister Eric Cline was not discouraged, saying land sales and drilling numbers “point to another good year.”
Manitoba, the minnow among the four western provinces, collected C$1.11 million from an August auction.
But that was its best result in more than seven years and easily eclipsed the total for all of 2003 of C$294.228.
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