Bill C-92: The Canada Petroleum Resources Act

This paper examines the provisions of Bill C-92, the Canada Petroleum Resources Act introduced in December of 1985 to replace the Canada Oil and Gas Act. The paper deals with such major aspects of the Act as: the repeal of the Crown share; the introduction of a new land issuance process applicable to the exploration licence, the significant discovery licence and the production licence; the elimination of retroactive Canadian ownership rules as well as a review of the rules for the attainment of COR requirements prior to the issuance of a production licence; the restrictions placed on Ministerial discretion and the introduction of a more objective process to review Ministerial orders; changes to the royalty regime and the creation of a frontier lands registry system.