Thank you.
As the committee is aware, Canada possesses tremendous resource wealth with the third largest reserves of crude oil in the world, some 173 billion barrels. We are also the world's sixth largest producer of natural gas.
In terms of financial investment and jobs, the upstream oil and gas industry is today Canada's single largest private investor, forecast to inject some $68 billion into Canada's economy this year, and that capital provides direct and indirect employment for more than 550,000 Canadians and countless other sectors that do business from Main Street, Saskatchewan, to Bay Street, Ontario.
Overall, Canada's oil and gas sector's annual revenues are about $110 billion, which, measured against other major product selling categories, places hydrocarbons as Canada's largest product selling industry, larger, for example, than automobile manufacturing.
Importantly, domestic oil and gas companies typically invest every dollar of their cashflow plus more into the ground, which makes the sector unique. The multiplicative effect of these dollars circulating in Canada's economy means the stakes of maintaining the industry healthy are very high.
Today, crude oil is Canada's single largest export commodity, the value of which has increased more than tenfold over the past decade due to production increases and price changes. In 2004, 1.6 million barrels per day of crude oil exports netted Canada $7.1 billion. In contrast 2013 exports of 2.5 million barrels netted Canada $81 billion.
While the loud discussion about Keystone XL continues in the United States, each day Canada quietly provides one third of America's oil imports, making us their largest crude oil supplier.
But to ensure we can continue to fully realize the value of our non-renewable resource products, market diversification and access to new markets, especially to growing economies in Asia, is strongly advised. Because the benefits, be they safe energy or jobs or government revenues, are the reason we develop oil and gas, I'd like to touch briefly on what these benefits look like at the local level.
Let's start with B.C. British Columbia is Canada's second largest producer of natural gas and is home to some of the largest shale gas deposits in North America. With global demand for natural gas expected to increase by 55%, according to the IEA, B.C.'s endowment positions it perfectly to serve emerging markets in Asia.
With natural gas exports to the U.S. in decline, as we have heard today, developing LNG export facilities to Asia is needed and could contribute as much as $1 trillion to the B.C. economy over the next 30 years, creating 54,000 jobs and generating some $47 billion in tax revenue to support the delivery of B.C. public services. As natural gas development and proposed LNG facilities occur in and around first nations land, partnerships with and significant economic benefits to aboriginal people, such as the Haisla, are accruing and will continue to accrue.
To give you some scale, if one project alone, the Kitimat LNG project, proceeds it would be the largest construction site in Canada, providing training and well-paid union and non-union jobs in a region desperately needing employment, especially given the recently announced pulp mill closures.
Alberta, what is there to say about Alberta? Jobs for one. According to the recent RBC report, Alberta created some 67,900 new jobs, nearly two-thirds of all the net new jobs in Canada. Yes, these were in oil and gas, but they were also in housing, retail, and the personal services sectors.
While the image of oil and gas workers is often corporate like me, Alberta's oil sands industry delivers great jobs in many unexpected places. The industry is the single largest employer of skilled trades in Canada, including the largest employer of unionized skilled trades, and in a country needing skilled workers, Alberta has become a skilled trades training powerhouse. We have one third the population of Ontario, but twice the number of apprentices.
Oil and gas benefits also accrue to aboriginal peoples. Over the past 14 years, aboriginal companies have earned more than $8 billion in revenue through working relationships with the oil sands industries. Contracts awarded in 2012 alone were some $1.2 billion, and about 1,700 operations jobs are staffed by aboriginal people. This is certainly just a glimpse of the type of business partnerships and entrepreneurism that could become the aboriginal economic potential.
Saskatchewan today produces 480,000 barrels of oil per day, about 15% of Canada's total, second only to Alberta. Along with potash, this has firmly made Saskatchewan a have province.
Surprisingly to many, Manitoba is Canada's fourth-largest oil producer and more than 5,500 wells have been drilled in Manitoba. As of the end of 2012, the fields there have produced some 315 million barrels of oil. Many of these jobs, as I was told by Minister Struthers the other day, are in rural communities, providing boosts to local economies through not only direct employment but also through other business opportunities.
Although Ontario is home to 2,500 producing wells, the primary benefit Ontario receives from the oil and gas industry comes in the form of affordable energy imports and from the billions of dollars in goods and services that oil sands companies source from more than 500 Ontario suppliers, a number that is only expected to grow. As the former finance minister said, oil sands development has become such a major market for Ontario goods that projected sales for Ontario's goods and services to the oil sands sector could potentially surpass Ontario sales to traditional markets such as China or Hong Kong. According to the Conference Board, Ontario workers could earn $41 billion from natural gas and $36 billion from oil sands over the next 25 years, with the industries contributing $57 billion and $63 billion to GDP respectively over the same time period. Some examples of Ontario benefits were described here today by CME. More broadly, there are other ways that many Ontarians don't realize. Oil and gas companies comprise 20% of the TSX and many office towers in growing energy cities like Calgary are owned by Oxford, which is part of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System.
Like Ontario, the majority of local benefits to Quebec result from oil and gas procurement of supplies of goods and services. Over the past few years, CAPP has featured Quebec companies such as Prevost buses and Ezeflow in our TV commercials and we have lists of hundreds of more companies, each of which has its own niche and own story. The list and stories of Ontario and Quebec manufacturers involved in the oil sands are multiplying like bunnies.
More obviously, Quebec's financial sector is heavily invested in the oil sands from the Desmarais investment in Total SA, which has leases in the oil sands, to the Caisse, which U.S. filings indicate holds some $4.7 billion in oil sands equities. The oil production potential around Anticosti Island and the shale gas resource potential are also both interesting developments to watch in the province.
Finally, Atlantic Canada has about 5,600 people directly employed and thousands more indirectly employed in oil and gas and we support over 800 local supply and service companies.