B.C. Government Admits to $1.46-Billion Gas Revenue Forecast Error
The British Columbia government has acknowledged that it overestimated its forecasted natural gas revenues by $1.46-billion over five fiscal years due to errors in currency conversions and data entry.
Evidence of these mistakes came to light after Treaty 8 First Nations alerted officials to what they believed was an error in the province's accounting of processing and transportation costs for natural gas in June.
The Energy Ministry staff said that correcting the errors resulted in a price decrease of 44 cents per gigajoule of natural gas in B.C.'s forecasting for 2026-2027, which is based on private-sector estimates of natural gas prices provided in Canadian or U.S. dollars.
The opposition has criticized the government's handling of the situation, with Finance Critic Gavin Dew saying that 'this isn't just an accounting error. It's a credibility problem.'