B.C. government confirms errors worth $1.46B in gas revenue forecasts

Errors including botched currency conversions led the British Columbia government to overstate its forecasted natural gas revenues by about $1.46 billion over five fiscal years, officials confirmed on Tuesday.

Senior staff with the ministries of energy and finance told a technical briefing the administrative errors had been independently verified and corrections would be included in the province’s quarterly fiscal report expected later this month.

The briefing heard the impact on B.C.’s deficit — last pegged at $7.7 billion for fiscal year 2025-2026 — would be made clear with the release of that report.

The most substantial of the errors made by staff in the Energy Ministry related to U.S.-Canadian dollar conversions, when a formula was incorrectly applied across a spreadsheet.

Correcting that error resulted in a price decrease of 44 cents per gigajoule of natural gas in the province’s forecasting for 2026-2027.

Budget 2026 shows incorrect forecasted prices per gigajoule ranging from $2.34 to $4.83 at plant inlet, referring to gas that hasn’t yet been processed.

Energy Minister Adrian Dix was expected to take questions from reporters about the errors later Tuesday.

The information in the briefing was provided on background, meaning it was not for attribution to an individual.

A second error involving the conversion of energy units amounted to a five-cent decrease in the forecasted price.

Two other errors stemming from the use of data from 2025 instead of this year’s figures resulted in a decrease in the plant inlet price of 1 cent per gigajoule, while adding 3 cents to the outlet price.

Combined, correcting the errors amounted to an average annual decrease in expected revenues of $292 million from this fiscal year to the one starting in 2030.

The impact for the current fiscal year is $306 million, reducing forecasted revenue by about 24 per cent, from $1.297 billion to $991 million.

The Energy Ministry is working with experts to improve its quality assurance process in forecasting moving forward, officials told the briefing.

The province has been working on an updated framework for collecting natural gas royalties that’s set to come into force on Jan. 1, with the goal of returning 50 per cent of profits after accounting for companies’ production costs.

Staff at the technical briefing on Tuesday acknowledged concerns among Treaty 8 First Nations in northeastern B.C. that the forthcoming framework won’t hit the 50 per cent target and said further information would be available this fall.

The briefing heard the First Nations and their technical advisors had alerted government officials to what they believed to be an error in the province’s accounting of processing and transportation costs for natural gas in June.

The ministry staff said the province reviewed its calculations and confirmed it had appropriately incorporated those costs in its forecasting, but in July uncovered the series of errors related to the conversion of currency units of natural gas.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 1, 2026.