I'll take the natural gas supply and oil sands policy and leave liquefied natural gas to Mr. MacInnis.
The numbers you referred to on natural gas are a reference from the National Energy Board about natural gas reserves. Natural gas reserves are what are technically and economically achievable today, and you're right, it represents today's reserves. Identified reserves that we can book represent 10 years' production.
But our resource base is far more significant than that. There is in excess of a couple of hundred trillion cubic feet in the western Canadian sedimentary bases covering British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan; we're producing six trillion cubic feet annually. A chart I'm looking at right now shows the remaining resource base as 538 trillion cubic feet, which represents close to 90 years of annual production.
We have to take into account that we are moving into more non-traditional areas. Coalbed methane represents a significant resource. We have drilled only a small number of wells and produced very little in terms of coalbed methane in western Canada. Our trend is to spend a lot of time, money, and technology on coalbed methane, and we expect coalbed methane to represent a significant growth area in the future.
Similarly, we have gas in the north, we have gas offshore on the east coast, and we have gas, we're fairly positive, offshore on the west coast. There are tremendous sources of gas remaining in the country that we need to be able to access and that we can produce.
Every chart we have seen produced otherwise shows that we do not see continued growth in natural gas production, but we do see a flattening and a long continued production profile, so please rest assured that we are not running out of natural gas any time soon.
With respect to oil sands policy, you're absolutely right. Governments of the day put in place a fiscal and regulatory regime that was very, very successful. Today we're seeing in excess of a million barrels a day come out of the oil sands. We see projections showing that it may possibly quadruple by 2020 and certainly double within the next 10 years.
Interestingly enough, this growth in supply by Canada is happening at a time when the global economy worldwide is screaming out for additional oil resources, and Canada is in the unique position of being able to meet that demand. We will add another two and a half million barrels of supply to the world supply over the next 10 to 15 years.
At the same time, we are challenged with consumers pressing us with respect to high prices. Prices are a function of demand and supply. We see the world supply situation; we see demand continuing at a fairly significant pace; if we don't bring on supply to address that basic demand, prices are going to go up and consumers are going to be that much more impacted by the very challenges we see--and those debates, we all know, are occurring.
So yes, we're a victim of our own success. We've put in place very successful policies that have led to tremendous growth rates. We are providing a supply the world is calling for in increasing numbers. Canada is in the unique position of generating tremendous wealth, generating supply for its own consumption, and generating supply for export, which leads to a situation such as Hans mentioned earlier. In 2004 the oil and gas industry contributed $18 billion to governments; in 2005 we contributed $27 billion to governments. From job impacts to the amount of taxes and royalties we pay, the oil and gas industry makes significant contributions to the Canadian economy.
A good sound policy has led to success, has led to increase of supply, and has helped dampen prices overall. I don't see any problem with it whatsoever.