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Dafoe is pushing for an assessment he believes is more in line with the value of Ember’s wells and pipelines, but he acknowledges that if his company pays less, other taxpayers — potentially homeowners, farmers or competitors — could pay more.

“We shouldn’t have to put up with wrong math,” he said. “We don’t know how they got to that number (the assessed value). That’s not the value of what we’ve got; that’s not the cost of what we’ve got …

“Why should we have to pay taxes on that basis?”

Ember has joined a growing chorus of resource producers that have taken their pleas for tax relief public in the middle of an oil price rout that has drained industry profits.

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the country’s largest heavy oil and natural gas producer, revealed last week it is lobbying municipal governments for a 30 per cent tax cut, while Perpetual Energy Inc. has offered to give some counties its assets to cover its bills.

Municipal Affairs spokesman Jerry Ward said the planned review is not a response to lobbying efforts but is a routine recalibration of property assessments. The last one was conducted more than a decade ago, he said.

With one exception, county governments have so far rejected the industry’s appeals for relief, arguing farmers and ranchers have not previously asked them for property tax breaks when faced with mad cow disease, drought or hail.

Al Kemmere, president of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties, said the industry has already seen some relief this year, noting several of his members have reported declines in the assessed values of oil and gas assets in their counties.