Canadian oil and gas industry statistics

Canada is the fourth biggest oil-producing country in the world. The oil and gas industry over here is active in 12 of the 13 provinces and territories of the North American country. Offshore locations of Canada are included in this calculation as well! This includes entities that are related directly to the industry as well as the ones that are indirectly connected. Oil production has almost doubled in the country since 1980 and much of the credit in this case can be given to the discoveries of oil sands in northwestern Alberta.

The role Alberta plays in the oil industry of Canada

Alberta is often referred to as the Texas of the North and with some justification, it must be added as well. There can be no doubt that it is at the heart of the oil and gas industry of Canada. It was in 2020 that it lost its status as the biggest oil-producing province in the country to Saskatchewan. However, it is still home to the biggest oil sands deposits of crude bitumen in Canada and it is also the biggest producer of natural gas in Canada to date. It also has almost double the number of drilled wells compared to Saskatchewan.

This statistic should be enough to underline the dominance that Alberta enjoys in this particular context. The offshore oil and gas operations of India have been limited specifically to the east of the country. However, the government has recently approved a new production site in Bay du Nord and this is why it can be expected that offshore drilling will only increase in the years to come.

Contributions of oil to trading and GDP (gross domestic product)

Canada earns billions of dollars every year from oil sales. Before the pandemic hit producer sales value of oil sands for Canada had gone up to almost 70 billion Canadian dollars. However, this profit was hampered thanks to a drop in oil prices including Western Canadian Select. This slump is also noticeable when you look at the contribution of this industry towards the national GDP. However, the pandemic severely affected some other important sectors of Canadian economy such as hospitality and tourism, and this is why its contribution to the GDP ended up increasing.

By 2021, this share had gotten up even higher to 3% each for conventional oil production and oil sands. This increased the total contribution of this sector to the GDP to 6%.

It is expected that between 2022 and 2027 the oil and gas market in Canada will grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of at least 1.8%. It is commonly known that the industry had been affected negatively by the COVID outbreak and the restrictions that the governments in the provinces and territories had imposed to curb the same. In the first quarter of 2020, the oil production of Canada had gone down by almost 20% compared to its average for the corresponding period in 2019 but things are expected to look up again.