Page 16 - SD_NG_BC

10 Downstream Natural Gas Copyright © 2014 by SDTC ™

4 Background

4.1 Natural Gas Use in Canada

In 2012, approximately 3,900 PJ (100,000 gigalitres) of natural gas was consumed in Canada. 3

Sectors within the Canadian economy that consume natural gas include the following: power generation; the industrial sector (including oil and gas producer consumption)*; the residential sector; the commercial sector; and other categories, such as transportation, agricultural, and pipeline compression. A sectoral breakdown of natural gas consumption in 2012 is shown below in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Breakdown of Natural Gas Consumption in Canada, 2012 4 †

11%

56%

16%

12%

4%

Power Generation

Industrial

Residential

Commercial

Other

In 2012, the largest consumer of natural gas was the industrial sector, which consumed approximately 56% of ‘available’‡ natural gas. Within the industrial sector, the oil sands industry was the largest consumer of gas (approximately 40% of industrial consumption). 5 The residential sector was the next largest consumer at 16%, followed by the commercial and power generation sectors at 12% and 11%, respectively. Consumption within the ‘Other’ category is primarily composed of natural gas use in compressors powering gas pipelines. This category also includes consumption within the transportation and agriculture sectors, although these sectors only consumed about 1% of available natural gas.

* The industrial sector includes the manufacturing industry, the oil and gas industry, and gas used to generate electricity. For example, combined heat and power plants that generate electricity for the oil sands industry are included under the industrial sector.

† Power generation includes natural gas transformed to electricity by utilities and natural gas transformed to steam generation.

‡ Available as defined in CANSIM table 128-0016. This includes the summation of production, imports, inter-regional transfers, inter-product transfers and other adjustment, less exports and stock variation.