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Crude oil and natural gas: Supply and disposition, January 2016

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Released: 2016-04-18

Canada produced 20.2 million cubic metres of crude oil and equivalent products in January, up 0.9% compared with the same month in 2015.

Chart 1  Chart 1 : Production of crude oil and equivalent products
Production of crude oil and equivalent products

Production of crude bitumen rises

The increase in the production of crude oil and equivalent products was attributable to crude bitumen, up 16.0% to 7.5 million cubic metres.

Offsetting these gains were declines in light and medium crude oil, down 13.9% to 4.1 million cubic metres; heavy crude oil, down 10.4% to 2.0 million cubic metres; and synthetic crude oil, down 4.0% to 5.2 million cubic metres.

Chart 2  Chart 2 : Production of crude oil and equivalent products by type of product
Production of crude oil and equivalent products by type of product

Exports are up

Exports of crude oil and equivalent products totalled 16.8 million cubic metres in January, up 10.9% from the same month in 2015. Meanwhile, imports to Canadian refineries decreased 10.3% to 2.6 million cubic metres.

Chart 3  Chart 3 : Exports and imports of crude oil and equivalent products
Exports and imports of crude oil and equivalent products

Inventories increase

Inventories of crude oil and equivalent products were up 3.4% from the same month the previous year to 20.0 million cubic metres in January. Closing inventories from transporters (pipeline companies) increased 5.8% to 17.5 million cubic metres, while closing inventories from fields and plants declined 10.3% to 2.6 million cubic metres.

Chart 4  Chart 4 : Inventories of crude oil and equivalent products
Inventories of crude oil and equivalent products

Natural gas

Canadian marketable production of natural gas was 13.7 billion cubic metres in January.

The monthly release on natural gas has been redesigned. Additional information on natural gas is available in The Daily release, "Natural gas transportation, storage and distribution," published March 22, 2016.

  Note to readers

The surveys that supply estimates to the crude oil and natural gas supply and disposition program are changing. These changes will affect the program over the next few release cycles.

Starting with the January 2016 reference month, content and methodology changes were made to the Monthly Natural Gas Transmission and Monthly Natural Gas Distribution surveys to provide readers with more detailed industry data. In addition, the Monthly Natural Gas Storage survey was developed and implemented to capture information on gas storage characteristics related to inventories and flows.

The changes to the natural gas surveys were implemented as part of Statistics Canada's Integrated Business Statistics Program. For more information, please consult the methodology documents on storage, transmission and distribution.

Data for natural gas in this monthly release are expressed in cubic metres, while data in CANSIM are available in both gigajoules and cubic metres.

Data on natural gas storage, transmission and distribution, previously found in CANSIM table 131-0001, are now published in CANSIM table 131-0004. As a result of these changes, data in the new CANSIM table may not be comparable with data from the previous table. However, the previous table will remain available for reference purposes.

As of the January 2016 reference month, information on upstream natural gas use and breakdown of sales by province of origin were discontinued. Pipeline fuel and line pack fluctuation were also discontinued. Data on natural gas inventory and new concepts of natural gas consumption by user type (residential, industrial and commercial) were added to CANSIM table 131-0004.

Changes in content and methodology to the crude oil components of the survey (inventories, exports and imports) will be implemented in the coming months.

Data are subject to revision.

Crude oil and equivalent products include heavy, light and medium crude oil, synthetic crude oil, crude bitumen, condensate, and pentanes plus.

Export data are a combination of National Energy Board data and survey data reported by respondents.

Import data include only imports of crude oil to refineries.

Total marketable gas includes gas received from fields and processing or reprocessing plants after re-injection, field uses, processing plant and reprocessing plant shrinkage, plant use, and losses have been deducted.

The Crude Oil and Natural Gas survey uses respondent data as well as administrative data provided by federal, provincial and territorial authorities responsible for the regulation of crude oil and natural gas production within their respective jurisdictions.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).

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