The Financial Post reports in its Thursday, Aug. 22, edition that small and mid-sized Alberta oil producers are looking to increase drilling as early as this fall after the province exempted a dozen of them from government-mandated oil production cuts. A Reuters dispatch to the Post reports that Alberta's previous New Democratic Party government imposed production limits in January. On Tuesday, the new United Conservative Party government extended curtailments through 2020, citing a delay to Enbridge's Line 3 replacement that could swell inventories again unless the limits remained in place. It also doubled an exemption threshold in the curtailment policy to 20,000 barrels per day, eliminating constraints on 13 companies whose output falls below that level. Alberta's 16 biggest producers will be the only ones receiving curtailment orders starting in October. Tamarack Valley Energy chief executive officer Brian Schmidt says: "We were diverting capital into share buybacks and into Saskatchewan. Now we'll put capital back to work in Alberta." Other producers that benefit include Whitecap Resources, Athabasca Oil, Pengrowth Energy, Baytex Energy and Obsidian Energy, Altacorp Capital Research said in a note.