Alberta's roughly 31,400 barrels per resident puts it ahead of major Gulf petroleum states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar on this particular measure.
An independent Alberta would have more oil reserves per person than some of the world's wealthiest petroleum states, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Alberta currently has about 158.9 billion barrels of proven oil sands reserves. With Statistics Canada putting Alberta's population at 5.06 million as of April 2026, that works out to roughly 31,400 barrels for every Albertan.
That's an extraordinary concentration of petroleum resources.
Alberta's government currently describes the province as having the fourth-largest proven oil reserves in the world, behind Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Older Alberta government materials described the reserves as third largest, but updated international estimates have pushed Alberta into fourth place.
Saudi Arabia has about 267 billion barrels of proven crude reserves, while Kuwait has roughly 102 billion, Qatar 25 billion and the UAE about 113 billion, according to OPEC figures. Their substantially larger populations mean Alberta's roughly 31,400 barrels per resident puts it ahead of those major Gulf petroleum states on this particular measure.
A future government could choose to slash or abolish personal income tax and rely more heavily on resource revenues and other taxes, but that would depend on spending, royalty revenues, debt obligations and the services the new country chose to provide.
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