British Columbia looks to be the only western province to bring in less than $1 million at provincial land sales in August.
The province raked in $950,120 in sales from the latest crown petroleum and natural gas land rights auction.
The Aug. 10 sale offered up 19 drilling licences and five land leases. All but two of licences sold and every lease was snatched up. A total of 11,451 hectares were exchanged.
The average selling price per hectare, a gauge of the demand on the land's geological potential, sat at $79.14 for drilling licences and $71.13 for leases.
This month's land sale marked an improvement over August 2015 numbers which were $366,543. But it's a far cary from August 2014, when the province netted more than $3 million.
B.C. has collected roughly $5.7 million this year, with just four more sales left in the year. Sales this year have ranged from a peak of $1.9 million in March to $0 in February.
August's auction is the province's third best sale of the year. The province recorded $1.3 million in May.
Since 1978, the lowest sales recorded in a single year for B.C. was $16.72 million in 1982, and the second lowest was in 2015 at $18.36 million.
Meanwhile, Alberta saw $11.21 million at its Aug. 3 land sale, with industry picking up 46,177 hectares, the Daily Oil Bulletin reports. Industry has shelled out $87.01 million so far this year, well short of the $183.68 million the province brought in by the end of August 2015.
Saskatchewan's Aug. 9 land sale brought in $9.98 million. The province has collected $17 million after eight sales this year, according to the Bulletin.
Manitoba has not yet posted land sales figures for its Aug. 10 auction. The province is a relatively small oil and gas player in Western Canada, with only four sales scheduled for this year. The province only brought in $141,859 from its February and May sales.
--with files from Matt Preprost
dcreporter@dcdn.ca
