Canada’s oil and gas companies have managed to boost production from conventional resources while reducing carbon dioxide and methane emissions over the decade to 2021, the industry association CAPP has reported.
Between 2012 and 2021, CAPP said, Canada’s oil and gas producers increased their total conventional hydrocarbon output by 21%, while emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent were reduced by 24%.
Natural gas production over the period rose by 35%, with CO2 emissions falling by 22% and methane emissions cut by 38%.
Oil production, meanwhile, declined by 9%, CAPP also said.
“This track record of lowering emissions while growing production is a demonstration of why Canadian oil and natural gas should be the barrels of choice for the world’s energy needs,” CAPP president and chief executive Lisa Baiton said. “As long as the world needs oil and natural gas, Canada’s barrels should be a part of that supply.”
Earlier this month, a survey from S&P Global Commodity Insight showed Canada’s oil sands producers had kept their emission levels unchanged last year from the year before. Output in the period increased.
Total production from oil sands in Canada rose by over 50,000 bpd to 3.1 million barrels daily last year. Emissions, meanwhile, remained at 81 million tons.
“We expected absolute emissions to rise as they always do when there’s no market disruption. The fact it stalled suggests industry may be able to achieve more than they anticipated,” S&P Global chief analyst for Canadian oil markets Kevin Birn said, as quoted by Reuters.
In the period from 2009 to 2022, the oil sands industry reduced its emissions by 23%. Production this year is expected to top 5 million bpd for the first time and continued expanding over the next two years.
Meanwhile, the Canada National Regulator has estimated that the country’s oil production could peak by 2026 if Canada and the rest of the world stuck to their transition goals and succeeded in fulfilling them.
