[2] Although Alberta has a presence in many industries such as agriculture, forestry, education, tourism, finance, and manufacturing, the politics and culture of the province have been closely tied to the production of fossil energy since the 1940s.

[40] By December 12, after the announcement of the government's "mandated oil output curtailment", the price of WCS rose c. 70% to c. US$41 a barrel with the WTI differential falling from US50 to c.

[42] According to TD Economics' September 2019 report, the government's "mandated oil output curtailment", has resulted in a sustained rebound in WCS prices.

Their combined borrowing that year was $27 billion, and their net financial debt at year-end stood at around $1.2 trillion, about 54 percent of GDP."

In his July 2019 CBC News article, economist Trevor Tombe said that prior to the 2014 recession, Albertans had experienced boom years from 2010 to 2014, with workers earnings reaching exceptional highs.

[22] Tombe said that from 2014 to 2016, Alberta earned CDN$75 billion less per year with the "total incomes of workers, business, and government combined [falling] by nearly 20 per cent".

[22] Tombes said that the "boom years that ended in 2014 were the outliers" and the lower earnings in 2019 reflect a "natural adjustment that's moving Alberta to a more normal and balanced labour market.

"[48] The agency said that there is a "structural weakness in the provincial economy that remains concentrated and dependent on non-renewable resources ... and remains pressured by a lack of sufficient pipeline capacity to transport oil efficiently with no near-term expectation of a significant rebound in oil-related investments...Alberta's oil and gas sector is carbon-intensive and Alberta's greenhouse gas emissions are the highest among provinces.

Alberta is also susceptible to natural disasters including wildfires and floods which could lead to significant mitigation costs by the province.

[9] According to the Conference Board of Canada, in 2016 Alberta earned an "A grade with income per capita almost identical to the top peer country, Ireland.

Alberta is located in the northwestern quadrant of North America, in a region of low population density called the Interior Plains.

Alberta is landlocked, and separated by a series of mountain ranges from the nearest outlets to the Pacific Ocean, and by the Canadian Shield from ports on the Lakehead or Hudson Bay.

Since the days of early agricultural settlement, the majority of Alberta's population has been concentrated in the parkland belt (mixed forest-grassland), a boomerang-shaped strip of land extending along the North Saskatchewan River from Lloydminster to Edmonton and then along the Rocky Mountain foothills south to Calgary.

A 2003 study by TD Bank Financial Group found the corridor was the only Canadian urban centre to amass a U.S. level of wealth while maintaining a Canadian-style quality of life, offering universal health care benefits.

In line with Harold Innis' "Staples Thesis", the economy has changed substantially as different export commodities have risen or fallen in importance.

Immigration into the province was eased tremendously by the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway's transcontinental line across southern Alberta in 1880s.

It was not the first petroleum find in Alberta, but it was large and spawned an industry that significantly altered the economy of the province (and coincided with growing American demand for energy).

A comparison of the development of Alberta's less oil and gas-endowed neighbours, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, reveals the role petroleum has played.

[54]: 13  The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) claimed that Alberta lost 35,000 jobs in 2015–25,000 from the oil services sector and 10,000 from exploration and production.

Fort McMurray, one of Canada's fastest growing cities, has grown enormously in recent years because of the large corporations which have taken on the task of oil production.

By 2019, the entire natural gas industry had was primarily operating in northwestern Alberta and northeastern B.C., which resulted in strained infrastructure.

[77] CEOs of nine Alberta natural gas producers requested the Kenney government to mandate production cuts to deal with the crisis.

In the valley of the Bow River, alongside the Canadian Pacific Railway, valuable beds of anthracite coal are still worked.

Wheat, accounting for almost half of the $2 billion agricultural economy, is supplemented by canola,[88] barley, rye, sugar beets, and other mixed farming.

In 2011, Alberta producers seeded an estimated total of 17,900,000,000 acres (7.2 billion hectares; 28,000,000 square miles) to spring wheat, durum, barley, oats, mixed grains, triticale, canola and dry peas.

SA having decided to phase out their own forage and cereal production, Alberta expects this to be an opportunity to fill livestock feed demand in the kingdom.

Continuous cropping (in which there is no fallow season) is gradually becoming a more common mode of production because of increased profits and a reduction of soil erosion.

[88] Alberta is the leading beekeeping province of Canada, with some beekeepers wintering hives indoors in specially designed barns in southern Alberta, then migrating north during the summer into the Peace River valley where the season is short but the working days are long for honeybees to produce honey from clover and fireweed.

The city has the second highest number of corporate head offices in Canada after Toronto, and the financial services industry in Calgary has developed to support them.

"[97]: 12 Alberta has a burgeoning high tech sector, including prominent technology companies iStockPhoto, Shareworks, Benevity, and Attabotics in Calgary, and Bioware and AltaML in Edmonton.