Twelve Alberta oil and natural gas companies spent approximately $14.4 billion with Indigenous-affiliated businesses from 2021 to 2023

Press Release

June 19, 2025

A report prepared by iTOTEM Analytics for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) shows that Alberta’s oil and natural gas industry’s supply chain is a major contributor to the economic prosperity of Indigenous businesses and communities across the province. Twelve CAPP member companies, representing over half of Alberta’s oil and natural gas production (in 2023), participated in the survey. The report, titled “Shared Values Report on Indigenous Supply Chain and Indigenous Community Investment in Alberta’s Oil and Natural Gas Industry” shows that, during the three year period between 2021 to 2023:

• The CAPP member companies who participated in the study spent close to $13.9 billion through the procurement of goods and services from 585 Indigenous-affiliated vendors based in Alberta across 110 municipalities and 45 Indigenous communities.
• The number of Indigenous-affiliated vendors within Alberta’s oil and natural gas sector supply chain rose by 12.9% during the reporting period.
• Indigenous community investment expenditures by participating member companies also grew by 24.9%, rising from $17.9 million to $22.4 million.
• An estimated $58.6 million in Indigenous community investments was distributed to 195 Alberta based organizations located across more than 65 Alberta municipalities and 45 Indigenous communities.

Related Quotes:
Lisa Baiton, CAPP President and CEO
“Indigenous partnerships and participation are integral to the success of the oil and natural gas sector in Canada. The industry has made great strides toward developing strong relationships, pursuing meaningful engagement, and sharing the benefits from resource development over the past two decades. Working collaboratively with Indigenous communities and businesses, the oil and natural gas industry can support economic reconciliation and prosperity for generations to come.”

John Desjarlais, Indigenous Resource Network Executive Director
“We applaud the work done by CAPP, in their effort to not only understand their impact but to be accountable in their commitment to Indigenous economic impact that is transparent and telling. As can be seen, the impact is considerable and, as we have seen in our work and through our members, one of the great drivers of self-determination is through economic reconciliation.”

Crystal Quocksister, iTOTEM Analytics Client Service Manager
“For us, building this report with CAPP is about industry transparency and checking the numbers. But as an Indigenous entrepreneur in data science and AI, I’ve come to believe that tracking the numbers reveals something deeper—how change happens when we work together. There’s still work to do. But I’m hopeful, because I see a shared commitment from Indigenous communities, entrepreneurs, and industry to shape the future of resource development together. And the numbers show this to be true.”

Additional highlights of the report include:

Supply chain

• $4.6 billion was the annual average expenditure of twelve member companies with Indigenous-affiliated vendors in Alberta between 2021 and 2023.
• 17.7% of Alberta’s oil and natural gas supply chain expenditures were directed to Indigenous-affiliated vendors between 2021 and 2023.
• 60.1% was the growth in median annual spending per Indigenous-affiliated vendor in Canada, rising from $452K in 2021 to $724K in 2023.
• 45 Indigenous-affiliated vendors, on average, were contracted annually by each reporting CAPP member company between 2021 and 2023.
• Construction was the most-utilized Indigenous-affiliated vendor category between 2021 and 2023.

Additional background information

• The oil and natural gas industry is one of the largest employers of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, with over 10,000 individuals of Indigenous descent making up 7% of the oil and gas workforce—well above the national average of 3.9%.
• According to a recent Macdonald-Laurier Institute study, Indigenous equity ownership in energy assets is growing rapidly. Since 2017, Indigenous communities have acquired more than $5 billion in equity stakes in projects such as pipelines, tank farms, power plants and LNG terminals.

The full technical report is available here.

About iTOTEM Analytics
iTOTEM Analytics, with offices in Vancouver and Houston, is an integrated data science and project development firm that turns complex technical data into hyper-local insights on investment impacts. We help organizations communicate with credibility, build trust, and move projects forward—by showing how investment makes a difference in people’s lives and communities. Our approach is data science—no lab coats required.

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