yeah, happy to get some down here. I guess qec just went down with the overall market. Did someone miss that Alberta seam to have lost or giver B.C. some advantage(didn't know that QEC is in B.C.:)

As well, Alberta now faces substantial competition from British Columbia, home as well to unconventional gas fields that use advanced drilling techniques to extract energy from previously uneconomic shale beds.

All of which is grim news for an industry that produces $35- to $40-billion, or 10% of the Alberta's gross domestic product, and employs 60,000 people.

"The shifting momentum is not merely a risk facing the Alberta natural gas industry but the entire provincial economy," Burleton said.

Some relief should come as the sharp divergence between prices for oil and natural gas narrows in coming months, a likelihood also referred to in a study released Monday by the Conference Board of Canada.

Yet despite the anticipated rebound in prices into 2010, worries about the industry's long-term viability will persist, Mr. Burleton said. Analysts have long predicted that depletion of Alberta's gas resources would lead to a gradual decline in activity, but now "there are fears that the sun could set more quickly on the industry than originally believed."

Bungled revisions to the province's energy royalties - revised several times since their release - have helped chase billions of development dollars into the friendlier jurisdictions of Saskatchewan and B.C., and Mr. Burleton said the sector may yet be salvaged, but only if the government maintains "a stable royalty structure in an increasingly competitive environment."