Why FHOA
Hello from New President, Brad Murray
I am humbled to have been nominated by the long standing FHOA Board of Directors and voted in by FHOA’s membership to serve as FHOA’s next President. FHOA’s past two Presidents, David Speirs and Else Pederson, have served us with great dedication, compassion and commitment. They’ve set the stage and now it is our responsible to carry the Association forward, striving to make a difference like our predecessors have – going all the way back to Alberta’s homesteaders.
While we have outstanding issues to resolve including sustainable funding for the Association, aligning Crown regulations and processes with those of freehold mineral owners, and consolidation of freehold mineral titles. We also have new issues on the horizon including development of Alberta’s lithium resource comingled with our mineral rights (i.e. new leasing structures/terms) and utilization of pore spaces for CO2 sequestration (i.e. potentially stranding freehold oil and gas reserves as well as lithium).
Stay tuned ! And please ensure your membership is up to date.
Freehold mineral owners generally lack the technical and legal experience needed to deal with the energy companies that lease and sometimes develop their subsurface resources.
But freeholders are not just vulnerable in their dealings with energy companies; this vulnerability extends to their dealings with industry regulators, governments and the courts.
In recent years, freeholders’ vulnerability has been exacerbated by technological changes. Advances in multi-stage hydraulic fracturing of horizontal wells has unleashed huge new supplies of gas and oil from shales – rocks previously thought to be mostly unproductive. This ‘Shale Revolution’ is largely responsible for ongoing low natural gas prices in Western Canada. Concurrently, environmental concerns have forestalled pipeline construction and negatively impacted Canadian oil prices. Low and uncertain future oil and gas prices have lead to widespread energy company insolvencies. The provincial governments of the prairie provinces have responded to these circumstances with changes to their Crown royalty regimes which minimize Crown royalties, place freehold mineral owners at a distinct competitive disadvantage and sometimes result in drainage of freeholders’ mineral rights.
Becoming a member of the Freehold Owners Association or FHOA opens up access to a wide array of information, support and services, to help freeholders understand and protect their mineral rights in these challenging times.
Freeholders are not ‘lucky’ to own subsurface oil and gas rights. Our forefathers broke the land in harsh circumstances at the turn of the 20th century and earned the right to the minerals which we have inherited.
It is time we spoke with a common voice to protect our heritage!
