Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/26/2013 -- Increasingly challenging economics could slow the growth of oil-sands driven production, although we note that liquids-rich shales could be the new engine of liquid output growth. Exploration in the country's offshore acreage and unconventional resources could unearth more oil and gas reserves to support the country's long-term growth prospects. The outlook for Canada's oil and gas industry is still a positive one, though its upstream potential needs more support from the community and the government for infrastructure development.

The main trends and developments we highlight for Canada's oil and gas sector are:

- The abundance of gas production provides Canada with considerable export potential. More LNG export projects continue to emerge, with Altagas and Idemitsu the latest companies to file for an export application from a British Columbia (BC) site.
- Canada's oil and gas infrastructure face bottlenecks that need to be addressed to move oil and gas more effectively across the country, and out of it. Otherwise, the country will be faced with the paradox of being over-supplied with oil and gas, but prevented from exporting these due to the supply shortages that exports could pose to the domestic consumption needs of particular regions of the country. The approval of TransCanada's 1.1mn barrel (bbl) Energy East pipeline would increase the flow of western Canadian crude to the Eastern refining centres.
- We are seeing a growing trend of crude-by-rail shipments to circumvent the limitations in pipeline capacity. Strong growth in Canadian crude exports by rail is playing a critical role in transporting heavy crude produced from oil sands to the refineries on the US Gulf Coast configured to process it. This alternative mid-stream route will see strong short-term growth, at least until an alternative pipeline solution is found.
- We continue to see a threat to growing oil reserves from oil sands projects. Due to the boom in light, sweet crude production in the US, demand for heavier Canadian crudes from oil sands has fallen. Complicated by infrastructure bottlenecks that are limiting crude flows, this has widened the discount between the prices of Canadian crudes and WTI, which has in turn hit the economics of oil sands projects.
- Canada's proven oil reserves are expected to fall from 173.1bn barrels (bbl) in 2013 to 168.0bn bbl in 2017 due to a slowdown in oil sands investment, but should stagnate at around this level thanks to additions from liquids-rich shale developments, particularly Montney and Duvernay.
- Proven gas reserves will increase from 1.9tcm in end-2012 to 2.1tcm in 2017 and pushed further to 2.3tcm by 2022 as discoveries, mainly from shale deposits, are booked as reserves. Exploration breakthroughs if favourable economics lead to an increase in offshore drilling activity pose upside risks to our forecasts.

View Full Report Details and Table of Contents

About Fast Market Research
Fast Market Research is an online aggregator and distributor of market research and business information. Representing the world's top research publishers and analysts, we provide quick and easy access to the best competitive intelligence available. Our unbiased, expert staff will help you find the right research to fit your requirements and your budget. For more information about these or related research reports, please visit our website at http://www.fastmr.com or call us at 1.800.844.8156.

Browse all Energy research reports at Fast Market Research

You may also be interested in these related reports:

- China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Operations and Cost Analysis - Q1, 2013
- OJSC Rosneft Oil Company Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Operations and Cost Analysis - Q1, 2013
- Insignia Energy Ltd. Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Operations and Cost Analysis - Q1, 2013
- Second Wave Petroleum Inc. Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Operations and Cost Analysis - Q1, 2013
- Plains Exploration & Production Company Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Operations and Cost Analysis - Q1, 2013
- Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Operations and Cost Analysis - Q1, 2013
- McMoRan Exploration Co. Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Operations and Cost Analysis - Q1, 2013
- Greenfields Petroleum Corporation Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Operations and Cost Analysis - Q1, 2013
- Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Company Intelligence Report
- Petoro AS Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Operations and Cost Analysis - Q1, 2013