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Canadian gas exports bounce back
Gary Park
Canada is on track for a modest turnaround in natural gas exports to the United States, pulled along by a stronger demand for gas-fired power generation.
Against a background of agency forecasts of an irreversible decline in Canadian shipments south of the 49th parallel, National Energy Board’s latest report on Aug. 20 showed that May volumes to the United States rose to 281.5 billion cubic feet, up 4.2 percent from a year earlier, pushing the five-month total to 1.49 trillion cubic feet compared with 1.47 tcf a year earlier.
Exports were higher to all regions in May, with the U.S. Northeast posting a 3.2 percent rise to 86.7 bcf and the dominant Midwest market rising by 1.1 percent over a year earlier to 125.4 bcf. Might end two year slide in exports If the trend continues, it could end a two year slide in exports that followed 14 straight years of record growth.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that net pipeline imports would hold at the 2002 level of 3.6 tcf through 2010, and then go into decline to 2.6 tcf in 2025. It based that forecast on NEB estimates of total production to 5.9-7.1 tcf by 2015, down sharply from the regulator’s previous forecast of 8.1-9.0 tcf.
The NEB reported export prices for May averaged US$5.43 per million British thermal units and $5.40 over the January-May period, compared with $5.01 and $5.56 respectively last year.
In Canadian currency, exports fetched an average $6.97 per gigajoule in May, up 7.9 percent from May 2003, but the five-month level dropped to $6.72 from $7.64.
Revenues from exports climbed in May to C$2.12 billion (about US$1.63 billion) from C$1.89 billion (US$1.24 billion). The five-month tally dropped to C$10.8 billion (US$8.3 billion) from C$12.2 billion (US$9.4 billion).
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