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Recently retired Martin King, a renowned oil and gas analyst, at home in Calgary, Alta., on Dec. 21, 2018. Alberta’s intervention in the oil market accomplished its mission by boosting heavy oil prices, but in the longer term the move may do more harm than good, one of the industry’s best-known forecasters said as he stepped down from his longtime post. In early December, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley mandated an 8.7-per-cent reduction in oil production – some 325,000 barrels a day – to narrow a gaping discount on heavy crude against U.S. benchmark light oil that forced big losses in operations. It takes effect in January. But major producers had already begun to respond by cutting back output on their own, said Martin King, who left in December as oil and gas price analyst at GMP FirstEnergy after more than two decades in the chair. “I was personally not in favour of government intervention on this. The market was already sending clear signals that we didn’t need all this production,” Mr. King said in a recent interview. Before the government imposed cuts, energy companies had said they were on track to reduce production by as much as 160,000 barrels […]
