Good morning. With me is Wayne Geis, vice-president of strategic planning.
We are very aware of the fragile global economy; hence, our submission to you is to create a new opportunity for a cleaner, more prosperous future through a natural gas transportation strategy. We're proposing using our secure natural gas resource as an alternative transportation fuel because it is abundant, affordable, and clean. Natural gas gives Canadians competitive fuel choice for all modes of transportation, including on- and off-road vehicles, marine vessels, and rail locomotives.
North America has at least a 100-year supply of natural gas, making it a reliable, long-term transportation fuel option. Recently Canadian oil prices have averaged between $80 and $90 per barrel. Natural gas prices have averaged below $4 per thousand cubic feet, or $24 a barrel of oil on an energy equivalent basis. This makes natural gas affordable, with fuel savings of between 20% and 40% compared to diesel and gasoline.
Our budget recommendations are based on four objectives. First is to create highly skilled jobs. Encana estimates 65,000 jobs will be created over the next 10 years, if Canada supports an increased use of natural gas.
Second is to ensure a sustainable source of government revenues. Forecasts are that a growth of one billion cubic feet per day in transportation will generate, by the year 2030, an additional $11 billion in aggregate taxation revenue, and it will attract capital investments. Natural gas transportation strategy will attract new capital, investments in infrastructure, and manufacturing and vehicle purchases.
Companies like Encana are spending dollars on infrastructure. We estimate companies will spend $3 billion over the next 10 years.
The third objective is lowering emissions. The transportation sector is one of the largest contributors to GHG and other emissions. Using natural gas for the transportation sector has been shown to lower emissions by 20%.
In order to achieve these objectives, we have three recommendations for budget 2012. The first is to review the codes and standards associated with natural gas production, refuelling, storage and handling. Also, through the Regulatory Cooperation Council, we recommend aligning our standards with the United States so we can have a North American natural gas transportation industry. The recent funding allocation for phase two of NRCan's roadmap needs to ensure standards for both CNG and LNG vehicles and infrastructure.
Our second recommendation is to undertake the study that builds on the recommendations from the NRCAN roadmap and focus on key areas in user fiscal measures that would incent adoption and manufacturing of natural gas vehicles, regulations required to support natural gas vehicles, and barriers that prevent importing existing natural gas vehicles, to name a few. It's worth noting that there are 40 natural gas vehicles produced in the world that could be important in North America today if barriers were removed for their importation.
Our third recommendation is to commit to having no taxation levies, such as fuel, excise tax, and road taxes, on natural gas as a transportation fuel.
Given the fact that we now have a government that looks further, we have two recommendations for budget 2013. First is to implement fiscal measures over the next 10 years to incent adopters and manufacturers of natural gas vehicles. We believe those measures will provide a revenue payback, be sustainable, and they will attract significant capital investments and create jobs.
The second recommendation is to create a funding program for greening fleets in municipalities across Canada. In terms of pollution, converting one garbage truck to natural gas is equivalent to removing 325 cars off the road.
Encana thanks the Standing Committee on Finance for consideration of our recommendations to ensure creation of jobs, sustainable source of government revenues, attraction of capital investments, and reduction in emissions.
Thank you very much.