Alberta landowners take stand over years of missed payments by delinquent oil company

EDMONTON — Some Edmonton landowners are taking a stand by erecting a blockade against what they call a delinquent oil and gas company.

The group says MAGA Energy hasn’t paid its lease for three years, and therefore the company is no longer allowed on their land.

On Thursday, landowners Mark Dorin and Dale Braun put up a wooden barrier on their piece of farmland in southwest Edmonton, where MAGA Energy operates pumpjacks.

“If I’m a land owner and I don’t pay my bills, I lose my land, I lose my house,” Dorin told reporters in front of one of the company’s active wells.

“But look behind me, we’ve got (an) active pumpjack here … more pumpjacks over there on our land, all operating and they haven’t paid their bill.”

Braun, who along with his family own a 75 per cent stake in the land, said he’s not anti-oil and gas and that he believes Premier Danielle Smith’s government is on the right path when it comes to the industry. But he said he just wants the company to “grow up.”

“The laws have been broken here. They’re being broken on a daily basis and it’s being ignored,” Braun said.

Dorin said that now that the group has terminated the lease over the missing payments, MAGA Energy isn’t allowed on the land unless its employees are there to decommission the wells.

“That’s the law of Alberta and we’re going to enforce it here,” he said.

He added that the company usually has staff on site at least once a day.

MAGA Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dorin said the company had taken over the lease about a decade ago and at first had no issue making the payments, which he said amount to $12,000 a year.

Last year the Narwhal — an independent environmental news outlet — reported that MAGA Energy’s main refinery closed in 2023, which cut off a major revenue stream.

Dorin said he and the other landowners with stakes in the site have tried to get the provincial energy regulator to take action, but said the effort has gone nowhere.

“They’re supposed to balance the rights of that industry with the rights of these people that own this land. That’s not happening,” he said.

“We’ve got a complete loss of social licence for the industry that built this province, and thousands of landowners across this province are absolutely fed up with this lawlessness and these double standards.”

Oil and gas companies failing to pay landowners or pay property taxes to municipalities is a long-standing issue in Alberta, and MAGA Energy is just one company in arrears.

Landowners like Dorin and Braun as well as the association that represents rural municipalities in the province have been calling on the government for years to fix the problem, which has led to some policy changes.

But Dorin said it’s not that the province needs new laws to address the issue; rather he said the existing laws just need to be enforced.

In 2023 the provincial government implemented a new rule that required the Alberta Energy Regulator block the transfer of oil and gas leases to companies that were more than $20,000 in arrears. The Investigative Journalism Foundation reported last month that despite the rule, some companies, including MAGA Energy, have managed to acquire new wells.

Asked for comment on the blockade Thursday, the regulator said in a statement that agreements are private between a landowner and a company.

“The AER cannot enforce commitments between a landowner and a company not included in a written agreement,” it said.

Energy Minister Brian Jean dismissed Dorin and Braun as “activists,” but he also said that no system was perfect, “especially when it’s run by the government.”

“But I will tell you this government is focusing like a laser on this particular issue,” Jean told reporters at the legislature in Edmonton.

“For the first time ever a government is actually looking at the current process and trying to make the process a lot better.”

Jean, in a statement later Thursday, added that landowners who haven’t been paid by energy companies can file a claim with the provincial property rights tribunal, which can order the government to compensate land owners instead of private companies.

Dorin said it was an “absolute joke” that taxpayer dollars get doled out when a company refuses to pay.

“That’s roads, hospitals, libraries (and) other services that aren’t funded,” he said.

Opposition NDP energy critic Nagwan Al-Guneid said Dorin and Braun aren’t alone in their fight against oil companies not paying rent or taxes, calling it a “crisis in the management of liabilities” in the province.

“Companies have promises to fulfil to landowners, and it’s a question of how is the regulator applying the law to ensure that companies are meeting the commitments to these landowners,” she said.

“The regular needs to regulate, the government needs to start governing and ensuring that companies are meeting their commitments.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2026.

Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press