Canada’s Gas Pipeline Exports Down 7.5%: Regulator
Pipeline exports of natural gas from Canada fell 7.5% in 2020, the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) said March 12, continuing a trend that has seen exports fall by 16% since 2016 and by nearly 35% from peak levels more than a decade ago.
Pipeline exports fell to 70.9bn m3 (6.8bn ft3/day) in 2020 from 76.6bn m3(7.4bn ft3/day) in 2019, the CER said in a natural gas trade report published on its website. In 2016, Canada’s pipeline gas exports averaged more than 8.1bn ft3/day and totaled 84.2bn m3.
Canada’s gas exports peaked at 108.8bn m3 in 2007, according to statistics compiled by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), and have fallen steadily since as the shale gas revolution has turned the US – once Canada’s major gas export customer – into its major competitor. CAPP’s estimate of 2019 exports is slightly lower than that presented by the CER, at 74.4bn m3 for the year.
For the first time, the US West region (the Pacific Northwest and California) emerged in 2020 as the largest export market for Canadian gas, accounting for 32.12bn m3 of exports. Exports to the US Midwest, long Canada’s most important market, fell to 30.3bn m3 in 2020 from 36.7bn m3 in 2019 (they exceeded 52bn m3 in 2011), while exports to the US Northeast were essentially unchanged at 8.5bn m3.
Net pipeline exports fell to 48.2bn m3 in 2020 from 51.1bn m3 in 2019, the CER said, while LNG imports, largely through Canada’s lone import terminal in New Brunswick, jumped to 872mn m3 in 2020 from 522mn m3 in 2019.
LNG exports, via ISO container shipments by FortisBC from its Tilbury Island liquefaction facility in BC, totaled just over 11mn m3 in 2020, underlying CER data shows. The price fetched by those exports averaged C$8.32/GJ, against an average price of C$2.48/GJ for pipeline exports.