Crude oil and natural gas: Supply and disposition, February 2016
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Released: 2016-05-09
Canada produced 18.5 million cubic metres of crude oil and equivalent products in February, up 2.0% compared with the same month in 2015.
Chart 1
Production of crude oil and equivalent products
Production of crude bitumen rises
The increase in the production of crude oil and equivalent products was mostly attributable to crude bitumen, up 10.5% to 6.6 million cubic metres, and pentanes plus, up 28.3% to 1.0 million cubic metres. Production of synthetic crude oil also rose, up 0.3% to 5.0 million cubic metres.
Offsetting these gains were light and medium crude oil production, down 8.8% to 3.9 million cubic metres, and heavy crude oil production, down 6.5% to 1.9 million cubic metres.
Chart 2
Production of crude oil and equivalent products by type of product
Alberta accounted for 79.8% of Canada's total production of crude oil and equivalent products in February. Crude oil and equivalent production in the province totalled 14.8 million cubic metres, an increase of 3.2% from the same month in 2015.
Exports and imports
Exports of crude oil and equivalent products totalled 14.6 million cubic metres in February, up 8.5% from the same month in 2015, and represented 71.5% of total disposition.
Imports to Canadian refineries decreased 24.2% to 1.9 million cubic metres and represented 9.3% of total supply.
Chart 3
Exports and imports of crude oil and equivalent products
Inventories increase
Inventories of crude oil and equivalent products were up 4.7% to 20.0 million cubic metres in February compared with the same month the year before, marking the ninth consecutive year-over-year increase. Closing inventories from transporters (pipeline companies) increased 6.1% to 17.4 million cubic metres, while closing inventories from fields and plants declined 3.5% to 2.6 million cubic metres.
Chart 4
Inventories of crude oil and equivalent products
Natural gas
Canadian marketable production of natural gas totalled 13.1 billion cubic metres in February.
The monthly release on natural gas has been redesigned. Additional information on natural gas is available in "Natural gas transmission, storage and distribution" published in The Daily on April 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 inventories 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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