Report - Agence canadienne d'évaluation environnementale

Project energy context
♦ Finding — The Panel notes the significant growth currently under way and projected
in the global LNG market. The Panel also notes the limits of natural gas reserves in
gas-consuming countries and the fact that few countries account for most of LNG
supply on the world market.
The continental context 1
According to the IEA 2 , North America is the largest natural gas market in the world
with a consumption capacity that was of the order of 717 Gm 3 in 2002. For North
America, confirmed natural gas reserves were 6,908 Gm 3 in early 2003, which
corresponds to 4 percent of world reserves, and between nine and ten years of supply
based on current consumption rates. Three quarters of these reserves are found in
the United States (5,293 Gm 3 ). The proponent in turn recalls that the North American
market accounts for 29.4 percent of the planet’s available natural gas (PR3.2,
p. 2.29).
Hirschhausen 3 reports that the United States is the second largest natural gas
producer in the world (526 Gm 3 in 2005, or 20% of the total world production of that
year) as well as the largest consumer (634 Gm 3 for the same year). In 2005, US
imports from Canada accounted for 13 percent of consumption (102 Gm 3 ). According
to the same source, US LNG imports tripled between 2002 and 2005, increasing from
6.5 to 18.5 Gm 3 , or 3 percent of consumption.
Canada is the second largest natural gas exporter, after Russia, and the fifth largest
consumer, with 3.4 percent of annual world consumption 4 . According to the National
Energy Board (NEB), the average natural gas production rate in Canada was
484 Mm 3 /d in 2005 5 , and 60 percent of Canadian production was exported to the
United States 6 .
According to the NEB, estimated natural gas resources in Canada, including
undiscovered resources, total between 15,525 Gm 3 and 16,880 Gm 3 . Approximately
half of these resources are in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) and
1. For analysis purposes, the Panel deals only with the United States and Canada.
2. Op. cit.
3. C. Hirschhausen, Infrastructure Investments and Resource Adequacy in the Restructured US Natural Gas
Market – Is Supply Security at Risk?, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, December 2006
[On-line: http://tisiphone.mit.edu/RePEc/mee/wpaper/2006-018.pdf].
4. An Energy Summary of Canada [On-line: www.cslforum.org/canada.htm].
5. [On-line (16 March, 2007): www.neb-one.gc.ca/energy/EnergyReports/
EMAGasSTDeliverabilityCanada2006_2008/EMAGasSTDeliverabilityCanada2006_2008_e.pdf].
6. Energy Information Administration, Canada: Natural Gas [On-line (16 March 2007): www.eia.doe.gov/
emeu/cabs/Canada/NaturalGas.html].
Rabaska Project – Implementation of an LNG Terminal and Related Infrastructure 71