How concentrated is production? Licensee shares in Alberta and Saskatchewan
November 2026Illustrative, not for reserves or investment decisions
A few large companies drill and own much of Canada's production, and a long tail of small ones own the rest. We measured how concentrated it is using the licensee on each well's licence, counting only wells that reported production in the last 12 months. We do not name companies: this is about the shape of the industry, not who is who.
1. The numbers
| Group of licensees | Share of producing wells | Share of oil volume | Share of gas volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alberta, top 1 | 28% | 26% | 15% |
| Alberta, top 5 | 52% | 67% | 48% |
| Alberta, top 10 | 66% | 79% | 68% |
| Alberta, top 20 | 77% | 87% | 82% |
| Alberta, top 50 | 89% | 96% | 94% |
| Saskatchewan, top 1 | 23% | 27% | 18% |
| Saskatchewan, top 5 | 70% | 71% | 64% |
| Saskatchewan, top 10 | 83% | 84% | 80% |
| Saskatchewan, top 20 | 91% | 94% | 93% |
| Saskatchewan, top 50 | 98% | 99% | 99% |
394 licensees hold Alberta's 143,240 producing wells; 151 hold Saskatchewan's 41,887.
The five largest licensees hold 52% of Alberta's producing wells and 70% of Saskatchewan's. Saskatchewan is much more concentrated: its largest licensee alone holds 23% of wells and 27% of oil volume, against 28% and 26% in Alberta.
2. How fast do the shares build up?
The tail is long. 160 Alberta licensees and 75 in Saskatchewan have fewer than ten producing wells, and together they hold 0.4% and 0.6% of producing wells. Concentration in volume is higher than in wells in both provinces (clearly so in Alberta), which suggests the biggest licensees' wells are on average more productive.
What this means in practice
- In Saskatchewan, a handful of licensees decide most of the activity; in Alberta the same is true to a lesser degree.
- Counting companies tells you little: hundreds exist, but ten of them hold 66% (Alberta) and 83% (Saskatchewan) of producing wells.
- If you are building a data tool, expect to join on licensee code, not name, and expect the same company to appear under several names.
Limits
- The licensee on the licence is not always the current operator: wells change hands without a new licence. These are licensee shares, not operator shares.
- The same company may appear under more than one legal name, which would understate concentration.
- Alberta oil volume includes bitumen from wells licensed for it, so "oil" shares there are partly bitumen.
- BC's public files do not include operator names, so BC is not covered.
- Counts are of wells producing in the last 12 months as of the files we downloaded.
Reproduce it
Code: github.com/Jay-Kimani/TidyWells, posts/cache_matrix.py, posts/wells_study.py, posts/dq_study.py and posts/gen_posts2.py. Download the files yourself from Petrinex and the BC Energy Regulator; we do not host the data.
Illustrative only. Not for reserves reporting or investment decisions.
Contains information licensed from Petrinex public data (Alberta, Saskatchewan) and the BC Energy Regulator; Crown copyright of the provinces is acknowledged. Tidywells is not affiliated with any regulator.