Things are looking better for Canadian oil and gas

Statistics Canada has some good news for anyone interested in the health of Canada’s oil and gas industry. Canadian oil production is nearly at full capacity, and natural gas is also showing solid growth compared to last year at this time.

According to StatsCan’s Crude oil and natural gas: Supply and disposition report, as of May 2018, Canadian production of crude oil and equivalent products rose 13.5 per cent from one year earlier.

In good news for Alberta’s oil patch, bitumen production was the main driver of the increase of total production in May. The increase on bitumen production was 22.8 per cent compared to May 2017. Synthectic crude, light and medium crude, and equivalent products also contributed to the overall increase.

StatsCan also revealed that oilsand extraction has returned to near-capacity levels, increasing significantly by 16.9 per cent since the same time last year. Canada also exported a record level of crude oil and equivalents, rising 9.3 per cent over the year.

And neither natural gas (nor British Columbia) have sat out this party, with production increasing 3.1 per cent from the same time last year. Mostly of the production of natural gas was concentrated in Alberta (68.7 per cent) and B.C. (29.0 per cent).

Interestingly, oil transport by rail was down compared to a year previous, with rail/truck exports to the United States down 17.3 per cent from May 2017 while pipeline export to the U.S. was up by 8.2 per cent.

So, some light at the end of the tunnel. Good news indeed for a sleepy summer.