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Natural gas transmission, storage and distribution, December 2018

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Released: 2019-03-04

Natural gas transmission pipelines received 601.0 million gigajoules of natural gas from fields, gathering systems and plants in December, up 2.1% from the same month in 2017. The vast majority of receipts were in Alberta (67.8%) and British Columbia (30.2%).

Over the same period, natural gas transmission and distribution systems delivered 237.2 million gigajoules to industrial consumers, 91.5 million gigajoules to residential consumers and 75.5 million gigajoules to commercial and institutional consumers.

Chart 1  Chart 1: Canadian monthly natural gas deliveries
Canadian monthly natural gas deliveries

Canadian natural gas distribution systems reported $614.8 million in revenues from residential consumers and $430.6 million from commercial and institutional consumers in December.

Provincial deliveries

Alberta deliveries of natural gas amounted to 190.0 million gigajoules in December. The industrial sector received the majority of these deliveries (80.7%), accounting for 37.9% of all natural gas delivered in Canada.

Transmission and distribution systems delivered 113.9 million gigajoules of natural gas in Ontario. Of this total, 46.2 million gigajoules were delivered to the residential sector, which accounted for 50.5% of deliveries to residential consumers in Canada.

Inventories

In December, opening inventories of natural gas held in Canadian facilities totalled 943.5 million gigajoules. Over the month, inventories decreased 5.0% to close at 895.9 million gigajoules.

Exports and imports

Canadian exports of natural gas by pipeline to the United States totalled 271.0 million gigajoules in December.

Meanwhile, imports to Canada from the United States totalled 93.3 million gigajoules.

Chart 2  Chart 2: Canadian imports and exports of natural gas
Canadian imports and exports of natural gas

2018 in review

Natural gas transmission pipelines received 6.8 billion gigajoules of natural gas from fields, gathering systems and gas plants in 2018, up 4.0% from 2017.

Over the same period, natural gas transmission and distribution systems deliveries increased to all three sectors: industrial consumers (+9.2%), residential consumers (+4.9%) and commercial and institutional consumers (+4.5%). The higher deliveries were partially due to colder temperatures across much of Canada during the winter months of 2018 when consumers increase their usage of natural gas for heating.

As a result of this increased use of natural gas for heating, by April 2018, natural gas inventories were drawn down to their lowest level (586.4 million gigajoules) since the start of the data series in 2016.

Chart 3  Chart 3: Canadian natural gas inventories
Canadian natural gas inventories

Exports of natural gas to the United States totalled 3.2 billion gigajoules in 2018, down 5.1% from 2017. Imports of natural gas from the United States were down 10.8% from 2017 to 837.4 million gigajoules.

  Note to readers

Data have been revised from November 2018.

In early 2019, this Daily article will be part of a new consolidated monthly energy release where data from multiple monthly energy surveys will be released on the same day.

Definitions

As of reference month January 2016, the term marketable natural gas was replaced by the current term, natural gas from fields, gas-gathering systems and gas plants.

Natural gas deliveries (termed "sales" in releases prior to January 2016) include deliveries to industrial, commercial and institutional, and residential consumers.

Opening inventories correspond to inventories as of the first day of the reference month, while closing inventories correspond to inventories as of the last day of the reference month. For example, the reference period for the opening inventory in January was January 1, while the reference period for the closing inventory was January 31.

Pipeline fuel is used to power compressors to move gas through pipelines.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).

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