Perfect.
I won't go into this in a lot of detail. I'd like to explain what we see in the opportunities, on behalf of the oil and gas industry, to strengthen what is already a very strong relationship with Japan.
As you and I and also some of your colleagues know, Mr. Chairman, our association represents just over 100 oil and gas companies from the east coast to the west coast to the north of Canada. About 90% of all the oil and gas produced in Canada is represented by our association. When I make these comments, it's really on behalf of the large, the mid-sized, and even the small companies that are looking for the strength of relationship that they have seen over the long period of time with Japan.
Quite interestingly, we've talked about the Asian investments we've seen recently in our sector and also the trading relationship with other countries. Actually, with Japan we have a very long-standing relationship. As Ms. Sharpe mentioned, just to remind some of your committee members, Japan Canada Oil Sands Limited actually commenced back in 1978. To put that in oil and gas terms, that's when we had our first major oil sands project after Suncor. We went into Syncrude in that year, so you can see that they have been here involved in our sector for a long time.
The other thing that is quite interesting to note is that Japan was actually there as some of the formation companies, along with the government research associations that predate the SDTC, but again in the development of this new drilling technology that we call steam-assisted gravity drainage. They were one of the first partners in that project back in 1992, so there has been this long-standing relationship that began on the oil side.
On the natural gas side of things, there were other countries, but they were one of the primary funders and participants in the major gas hydrate research project that the federal government, some provincial governments, and others were directly involved in with industry to try to tap into this new resource up in the Northwest Territories. That pilot project went on for a period of almost nine years, from 1999 to 2008. Again, hundreds of scientists from many countries around the world used that to get not only a look at Canada's resources but at how we can develop technology here and use that in other countries around the world.
That's some interesting background to the Canada-Japan relationship that not many people are aware of when they start looking at that as an opportunity not only for resources but as a partner in developing our resources here in Canada.
Equally, even in this building where I sit right now, there are many Japanese companies that have come to Canada to provide goods and services to our sector. In this building, we have Sumitomo, which provides steel, pipelines, and other things as well. We have Mitsui and others, and they have really tried to integrate into the economy to bring their expertise, their supplies, and other things to help enable the development of Canada's resources.
That's the background. I wanted to give your committee a flavour of what we see as the biggest opportunity to build on a strong base of trading relationship with Japan right now, and that's clearly in the area of natural gas. As Ms. Sharpe mentioned, due to the 2011 incident at Fukushima, the Japanese are clearly interested in generating more electricity for their country through the use of natural gas.
What follows in the subsequent slides—and I will not walk through every one of them—is really a background that sets the case for both why they are interested in that and how we as Canada can capitalize on this opportunity to try to make sure that the Japanese see us as a major supplier of this product.
First off, the technology that's been developed in cooperation with governments and agencies like SDTC has enabled the amount of natural gas accessible in Canada to more than double over the last few years. This technology is tapped into resources that we always knew were there but that we required technology to enable. That technology is providing not only Canada but all of North America with a very strong surplus of natural gas such that we are now looking at the opportunity to export it around the world. Clearly our industry is already on the global stage, and this is just an enhancement.
In the slides provided to you, I have shown the economic drivers. There's clearly a difference in the LNG, or liquefied natural gas market, in the world that Japan is paying for. It's priced in oil prices. The prices of natural gas here in Canada right now are priced in natural gas prices. It's the big difference between the two that provides this economic driver behind it.
I've also provided some information on the costs of achieving that opportunity. We can answer questions on the details, but it outlines what we need to do in terms of infrastructure, liquefaction, and manufacturing facilities to do that, and a number of other things. It's not simply a question of moving that natural gas as we do across Canada through a pipeline today; it does require significant technology and investment to allow that to happen.
The other slide is important in that what I've given to you is the demand growth that we see happening across all of Asia. While Japan, as you can see from one of the slides I've provided, provides a very strong base load for liquefied natural gas in that region right now, it's only one of several countries that are growing in the use of natural gas as all of those countries look to expand their electric generation facilities and are moving off resources like coal and looking at natural gas as one of those key bridging fuels for them. Japan is really a foundation there, but others are growing, and we could bridge off the relationship they have with Japan to move into those other countries eventually.
The last slide has a map associated with it that discusses the proposed west coast liquefied natural gas terminals that are in place.
Without going into the detail of all of the proposals that are there, it shows a map from northeastern British Columbia and the distance it takes to travel to Asia, in particular to Japan. Not many people recognize that we are actually strategically advantaged by the distance between ourselves and Japan when it comes to shipping routes. That gives us a competitive advantage over other regions, such as the Middle East and even Australia, which is competing in this market right now. It provides a good reason for us and for Japan to look at capitalizing on that opportunity, simply because, even though we often think how long the flights are from here to Japan, it really is close in commodity shipping terms, which many people don't recognize.
We see that as being a major opportunity to develop a strong relationship and maybe even deepen it with a trade agreement between Canada and Japan. We don't see any current tariff barriers that restrict that from happening, providing there's certainty of agreement between countries, as we've seen in other countries where we've done trade agreements, so that the commercial business can then take place on an even greater scale than it has in the past.
I'll now turn the time back to you and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.