As the world markets continue to be flooded with unsold oil and natural gas supplies, the market, working on the opposite ends of the supply chain, has slowly dwindled on the demand side, providing a perfect scenario for the current situation of declining prices for these two commodities.
In the last report released by Statistics Canada, there had been 17.2 million cubic metres of crude oil and equivalent products produced in this country in September, a decline of 3.5 per cent compared with the same month last year.
The decline in the production of crude oil (and equivalents) was led by synthetic crude oil, which was down by 17.3 per cent to 3.9 million cubic metres as a result of an unexpected shutdown at a major upgrading facility. There was also a similar decrease in light and medium crude, which was down 16.8 per cent to 3.6 million cubic metres, as well as a more moderate decline in heavy crude, which was down 9.4 per cent to two million cubic metres.
On the positive side, exports increased slightly in September of this year compared with the same month in 2014. The increase was 12 per cent to 15.3 million cubic metres. At the same time, imports of crude oil were relatively flat, edging down just 0.4 per cent to 2.5 million cubic metres.
For the entire quarter ending on Sept. 30, production of crude oil and equivalents, increased 4.8 per cent from the same quarter a year earlier to 57.1 million cubic metres. At the same time, exports of crude oil increased 7.9 per cent to 45.4 million cubic metres while imports were up 4.2 per cent to 8.4 million cubic metres.
On the natural gas side, Canadian gas utilities received 11.7 billion cubic metres of total marketable gas in September which was up 7.3 per cent from the same month in 2014. Meanwhile, exports of natural gas to the United States from Canada rose 5.2 per cent to 6.1 billion cubic metres and imports of natural gas were up 10.5 per cent to 1.6 billion cubic metres.
In the overall quarter that ended on Sept. 30, Canadian natural gas utilities received 35.4 billion cubic metres of total marketable gas which was up 5.7 per cent from the same quarter in 2014. During the same period, exports of natural gas to the United States rose 3.8 per cent to 18.4 billion cubic metres, while imports of natural gas declined 11.1 per cent to 3.9 billion cubic metres.
