Editor’s choice
Further investments in oil and gas infrastructure – and particularly new oil sands projects, new shale and tight oil fields, and new LNG projects – are increasingly risky given market trends and fundamentals.
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This paper examines the risks of future Canadian oil and gas development, using an analysis based on the fundamentals of supply and demand in oil and gas markets. It also considers how this development squares with Canada’s climate commitments and a growing momentum towards a transition away from fossil fuels.
This report comes amid the COVID-19 outbreak, and aims to inform energy planning and economic recovery, especially in Canada. The authors find that it could be a mistake to hitch Canada’s recovery and future economic prospects too tightly to fossil fuel production, even in the western provinces where oil and gas remain top of mind. Canada’s oil and gas industry is particularly vulnerable to drops in global oil demand and price — a trend that may persist well into the future — and the country’s oil and gas producers may face increasing challenges in competing with other, lower-cost producers.
This paper also considers what these market outlooks mean for Canada’s long-term, “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions targets, which will require the country to untangle itself from dependence on oil and gas production.
Initiative / The Carbon Lock-In Initiative seeks to uncover and address the barriers that uphold the fossil fuel-based economy.
SEI brief / Current and future oil sands projects may contribute to a long-term global oversupply of oil, slowing the necessary low-carbon transition outside Canada.
Other publication / This report is the first assessment of the gap between Paris Agreement goals and countries’ planned production of coal, oil and gas.
Initiative / The Carbon Lock-In Initiative seeks to uncover and address the barriers that uphold the fossil fuel-based economy.
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