by Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan
\nCanadian Energy Centre<\/p>\n
As\u00a0the\u00a0lockdown from the\u00a0Coronavirus\u00a0pandemic ends, provincial and federal governments will still\u00a0face the\u00a0reality\u00a0that arrived in its wake: a\u00a0recession<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0one made worse by a domestic energy sector that never really recovered from multiple\u00a0previous injuries already\u00a0in play.<\/p>\n They included: The Saudi-directed oil price crash in 2014\u00a0(and now one in 2020);\u00a0and\u00a0the domestic and foreign\u00a0rhetorical\u00a0attacks on Canada\u2019s\u00a0oil sands,\u00a0supported only by a\u00a0minority<\/a>\u00a0of Canadians,\u00a0but which\u00a0helped prevent multiple projects and pipelines from getting built.<\/p>\n Rather than\u00a0again\u00a0ponder the exact impact of such\u00a0anti-oil and gas\u00a0efforts\u00a0here, consider\u00a0what other energy-rich countries have been up to while Canada\u2019s ability to extract resources and ship them to markets, especially non-American ports,\u00a0was\u00a0stuck in the sludge of anti-energy protests\u00a0and\u00a0regulatory morass<\/a>.<\/p>\n To grasp this, let\u2019s consider natural gas\u00a0and with a worldwide view from 2000 to 2017 (the latest year for annual data available by country, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration).\u00a0In those years,\u00a0worldwide natural gas consumption soared by 52%\u00a0while the same U.S. agency, pre-pandemic,\u00a0forecast<\/a>\u00a0another\u00a040% rise by 2050.<\/p>\n The short-term outlook\u00a0for natural gas\u00a0use\u00a0has\u00a0weakened<\/a>\u00a0because of the Coronavirus. However,\u00a0the consulting firm Wood\u00a0Macenzkie\u00a0forecasts<\/a>\u00a0a recovery in natural gas demand, driven by demand in Asia. If so, this would mimic past natural gas demand patterns since 2000, where worldwide demand dropped only once, amidst the 2008\/09 financial crisis, and then recovered.<\/p>\n However,\u00a0here\u2019s the problem for\u00a0those\u00a0who care both about the economy and emissions, be they carbon or particulate, and the potential for LNG to help drive down both types of emissions: Canada was absent from the recent boom in natural gas\u00a0around the world. The country will again be absent from the next one\u2014and all its investment, jobs, and incomes\u2014unless premiers such as British Columbia\u2019s John Horgan\u00a0whose province has a significant government revenue interest in LNG exports,\u00a0can\u00a0more\u00a0successfully thwart\u00a0the\u00a0minority of Canadians<\/a>\u00a0who\u00a0actively undermine\u00a0oil and gas development.<\/p>\n Some history:\u00a0When natural gas consumption soared worldwide between 2000 and 2017, so too did production,\u00a0up 51%. Exports\u00a0rose in tandem,\u00a0higher by 79%.<\/p>\n While Canada was still among the top six exporters of natural gas in 2017, it was\u00a0mostly\u00a0absent from the boom because its main export market, the United States, produced\u00a042%\u00a0more natural gas in 2017 when compared with 2000. That dampened down U.S. need for Canadian gas.<\/p>\n While U.S.\u00a0natural gas production soared, Canada failed to secure\u00a0new\u00a0export markets\u00a0offshore. It is why\u00a0Canadian domestic production of natural gas was down 13% in 2017 relative to 2000, and why gas\u00a0exports\u00a0were down by 17%.<\/p>\n Canada was an anomaly. With a look at natural gas export gains by Canada\u2019s major competitors, here\u2019s the record when 2017 is compared with 2000: Russia (up 13%); Norway (up 146%); Australia (up 562%); Qatar (up 801%) and the United States, where exports of natural gas soared by 1,200%.<\/p>\n Australia, Qatar,\u00a0and the United States exported far less natural gas in 2000 than did Canada\u00a0so the\u00a02017 comparisons to 2000\u00a0are stark.\u00a0But that\u2019s rather the point:\u00a0In 2000, the United States, Australia and Qatar together exported just 1,102 billion cubic feet (bcf)\u00a0of natural gas. That was less than a third of what Canada exported (3,756 bcf) that year.<\/p>\n Thus those\u00a0three\u00a0countries, along with\u00a0Norway and Russia,\u00a0all\u00a0carved out competitive advantages\u00a0(Australia in Asia,\u00a0Russia and Qatar in Europe) while Canada\u2019s potential was hamstrung\u00a0care\u00a0of\u00a0activists<\/a>,\u00a0some\u00a0recalcitrant politicians<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0a laborious regulatory process that scares off investment. Moreover, the opposition to fossil fuels such as natural gas is driven by magical thinking and is\u00a0against all empirical evidence\u00a0according to\u00a0Bill Gates and energy expert Vaclav Smil<\/a>\u2014i.e.,\u00a0that\u00a0the world can do without\u00a0the industrial economy powered by\u00a0just\u00a0such energy.<\/p>\n Self-harm is never a viable strategy for a positive future but that is unfortunately the end goal for\u00a0some who oppose\u00a0natural gas extraction, production, and export. The reality is that\u00a0beyond any temporary downturn in consumption, Canada\u2019s\u00a0main competitors for LNG exports\u00a0will continue to attract investment\u00a0and thus\u00a0flourish with ever-more jobs and incomes, and receive a cornucopia of tax revenues.<\/p>\n The only question is whether Canadians and their elected governments will allow a minority of anti-reality activists to\u00a0help\u00a0thwart the next boom in natural gas\u00a0just as they\u00a0helped Canada miss out on the\u00a0last one.<\/p>\n Mark Milke is executive director of research and Lennie Kaplan is chief research analyst at the Canadian Energy Centre, an Alberta government corporation funded in part by taxes paid by industry on carbon emissions. They are authors of\u00a0<\/em>Missing out: Natural gas and Canada\u2019s exports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre As the lockdown from the Coronavirus pandemic ends, provincial and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1085,839,622],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1189529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1189530,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189529\/revisions\/1189530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1189529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1189529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1189529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}