Overview
Alberta’s government is modernizing the Enhanced Hydrocarbon Recovery Program (EHRP) to boost production from mature oil and gas wells while ensuring more sites are cleaned up sooner. The updated program, the Incremental Hydrocarbon Recovery Program (IHRP), offers targeted royalty relief to improve the economic viability of mature assets, while requiring industry to reinvest those savings into well closure and reclamation activities and continued development.
In 2024, Alberta’s government launched the Mature Asset Strategy to help aging oil and gas assets in the province, including sites near the end of their productive life. In 2025, the Mature Asset Engagement report was released, which included recommendations to modernize the EHRP to help extend productive life and support the clean-up of mature oil and gas assets.
As part of the EHRP modernization, the IHRP was introduced, with the program taking effect July 2026.
Below is a high-level summary of the program. For detailed information on the program, eligibility and application process, refer to the IHRP guidelines and regulations below.
Objectives
The objectives of the IHRP are to:
- Improve the economic viability of mature oil and gas assets through targeted forms of royalty relief to extend their productive life, encourage incremental hydrocarbon recovery and accelerate the adoption of innovative hydrocarbon recovery technologies
- Dedicate royalty savings towards future environmental obligations and economic activities, including funding for end-of-life site closure or reclamation, as well as reinvestment in oil and gas exploration and production activities within the province
- Strengthen Alberta’s competitiveness by supporting innovation and ensuring the province remains an attractive and competitive jurisdiction for energy investment relative to other producing jurisdictions
Program design and benefits
The IHRP consists of 2 program streams:
- The Enhanced Hydrocarbon Recovery (EHR) Stream will provide lower royalty rates to incremental crude oil and natural gas production achieved through enhanced recovery techniques.
- In return, operators will be required to allocate 100% of those royalty savings toward future site clean-up once production ends, or oil and gas exploration and development activities in Alberta.
- The Innovative Technology Program (ITP) Stream will provide royalty credits for industry to incorporate the latest technology to help achieve greater recovery of crude oil, oil sands and natural gas.
- This will help accelerate the deployment and commercialization of novel enhanced hydrocarbon recovery techniques.
Program eligibility
Both the EHR and ITP streams are application-based.
EHR stream
To be eligible for the stream, the Minister of Energy and Minerals will determine if an application meets the program criteria after performing a technical review and whether approving the application is in the public interest.
Stream eligibility criteria:
- The proposed scheme must produce more hydrocarbons from the pool through enhanced hydrocarbon recovery operations than could be produced from primary recovery.
- The proposed scheme must be granted technical approval from the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) for crude oil and natural gas enhanced recovery.
ITP stream
The Minister of Energy and Minerals will determine if an innovative technology project application meets the program criteria after performing a technical review and whether approving the application is in the public interest.
Stream eligibility criteria:
- The proposed project must utilize an innovative technology as determined by the Minister of Energy and Minerals:
- that is novel and likely to materially increase the total amount of crude oil, oil sands and natural gas production to be recovered
- is in a pre-commercial stage, such as Technology Readiness Level 6, 7 or 8 as defined by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
How to apply
Read:
Submit:
- For ITP Stream: Application packages must be submitted to [email protected] with the email subject line ’ITP Application Submission’.
- For EHR Stream: The application package must be submitted by the operator-of-record of the enhanced hydrocarbon recovery scheme to [email protected] with the email subject line ’EHR Application Submission’.
Contact
Connect with Program Design, Implementation and Monitoring:
Email: [email protected]