Mr. Speaker, the answer is as follows: a) According to the National Energy Board’s, NEB, July 2009 reference case scenario, Canada’s natural gas resource base is estimated at 439 trillion cubic feet, TCF, which would last more than 80 years at current production rates. As new shale gas resources are evaluated, this estimate could rise. The total natural gas resource includes proven reserves, which are ready to produce, plus estimated volumes, which are likely to be found and produced in the future.
According to a May 2009 NEB report, Canada’s total remaining conventional crude oil and crude bitumen, oil sands, reserves are 176.8 billion barrels, Bbbl. This represents the crude oil and bitumen that can be economically extracted from the ground with a high degree of certainty using existing technology. At 176.8 Bbbl, Canada’s proven oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia and would last approximately 200 years at the current rate of production. Alberta estimates that an additional 315 Bbbl of bitumen could ultimately be recovered from the oil sands with anticipated technological advancements.
Based on the World Energy Council’s Survey of Energy Resources 2007, Canada has 8.7 billion tonnes, BT, of proven coal resources in place, of which 6.6 BT have been identified as recoverable reserves. At the present production rate, Canada’s recoverable coal reserves would offer approximately 94 years of production.
b) Organizations such as the International Energy Agency, IEA, and the NEB rely on global energy resource and reserve estimates from the Oil and Gas Journal and the United States’s, U.S., Geological Survey. The world’s proven oil reserves have doubled in size since 1980. According to the U.S. Geological Survey’s reference scenario, three trillion barrels, Tbbl, of oil could ultimately be recovered globally.
According to the Oil and Gas Journal’s annual “World-wide Look at Oil and Gas Reserves”, global proven oil and natural gas reserves are estimated at 1,342 Bbbl and 6,254 TCF respectively. Since 1980, the world’s proven oil and natural gas reserves have doubled in volume. World natural gas supplies have a probable lifetime in excess of 130 years.
According to the IEA‘s coal information 2009, the world’s proven recoverable coal reserves amounts to 990 BT. Based on the 2008 production rate, the world’s recoverable coal reserves would provide approximately 145 years of production.
c) The latest NEB oil futures reports indicate that Canada’s oil production is not expected to peak in the foreseeable future. Rather, Canadian crude production will continue to increase to the year 2030, led by oil sands production.
Canada’s conventional natural gas production rate may have peaked at 494.8 million cubic metres per day, 17.5 billion cubic feet per day, in 2001. However, shale gas development in Canada is just beginning and could lead to higher annual Canadian natural gas production.
Canada produces coking coal and thermal coal, the production of which is projected to remain stable in the short- to mid-term as no new coal-fired power generation plants are expected to come on stream.
It is also important to note that Canada has vast amounts of oil and natural gas “in place”, or known to exist underground. These volumes are not currently included in resource estimates, as these “in place” volumes are not recoverable using current technology. For example, the total discovered oil sands “in place” volume is estimated at 1.7 Tbbl; significantly more than the total global oil production to date. As technology continues to improve, some of the “in place” volumes which are not currently economically recoverable are likely to become recoverable.
d) According to the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2009, global oil, natural gas and coal production is expected to grow between now and 2030 and no peak in production is forecast in the reference scenario. The reference scenario is a long-term production estimate based on current government policies.