AECO

Western Canada’s natural gas market never really seems to catch a break. Prices this winter have remained well below those across much of the rest of North America thanks to an all-too-common combination of insufficient pipeline export capacity from the region, bloated gas storage and robust supply growth. Even with forward price prospects for much of the rest of the continent looking buoyant, with more gas expected to head to expanding Gulf Coast LNG terminals and a storage-refill season that will be stronger than last year, price upside for Western Canada looks to be minimal at best and will be partly dependent on the rate of gas intake to LNG Canada, as we explain in today’s RBN blog. 

For the past several years, Western Canada’s natural gas producers have been forced to sit on the sidelines of too many broader price rallies as their main benchmark, AECO, languished at painfully low levels. Though an increasing number of producers have been steadily diversifying their price exposure away from Western Canada and AECO, even greater pricing upside might be captured if marketing arrangements could be developed to access higher international LNG prices via U.S. Gulf Coast terminals. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the steps that two of Canada’s largest natural gas producers have taken to capture that LNG price upside.

We’ve seen this movie one too many times. Just when natural gas prices are rallying across the world to multi-year or historic highs, another monkey wrench gets thrown into the workings of the Western Canadian gas market, imploding its suite of price markers. Last week, gas prices in Western Canada collapsed to mere pennies and even went negative for a time due to an unfortunate combination of pipeline restrictions and record-high production — a situation that will cost the region’s gas industry billions if left unchecked. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the root cause of the latest price collapse and when a turnaround might be expected.

Canadian gas storage levels concluded the most recent heating season at multi-year lows, especially in the western half of the nation, which hit a 16-year low at the end of March. Though storage sites have been refilling at a steady rate so far this summer, storage in the west, a region vitally important for balancing the North American gas market during high winter demand, remains unusually low for this time of year. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the latest developments in Canadian natural gas storage and explain why storage levels in Western Canada may start the next heating season at critically low levels.

As the new heating season in North America gets under way, the natural gas sector in Canada, the U.S., and even globally, is experiencing a surge in gas prices to levels unseen in many years. In Canada and the U.S., you would have to go way back to 2008-09 to find the most recent instance of $5/MMBtu-plus gas heading into a heating season. As for the rest of the world, it has never experienced prices at the levels reported in the past few months — north of $30/MMBtu in some places. The big question, as always, is: where do we go from here? In today’s RBN blog, we review our 2021 pricing outlook for Canadian gas and discuss our forecast for 2022.

With natural gas prices reaching levels not seen in seven years, Western Canada is doing all it can to help increase gas supply, with recent data showing monthly production hitting multi-year highs. Moreover, Canadian forward gas prices are at the highest levels since 2014, gas pipeline expansions are in place or being constructed to accommodate future supply expansion, and gas-focused drilling activity remains strong — all of which may as well be a prescription for sending gas production to record levels later this year and in 2022. In today’s RBN blog, we provide an update on the recent gas production growth in Alberta and neighboring provinces and why more growth is coming.

Last summer, Alberta natural gas prices staged a remarkable turnaround from the dismal lows and extreme volatility experienced the prior three summers. The price rise is widely credited to a temporary gas flow mechanism put in place by the operator of Alberta’s gas pipeline grid to combat congestion and oversupply issues associated with construction and maintenance during the summer of 2020. However, this temporary mechanism was just that — temporary — and will not be reinstated this summer. Without it, there is concern among Western Canadian gas producers that the weakness and volatility in gas prices seen during past summers might return this year. With warmer weather on the horizon, today we consider these issues and the potential for renewed price weakness in the Alberta natural gas market this year.

Unlike most natural gas producing jurisdictions in North America facing a pullback in drilling and capital spending, producers in Western Canada appear to be doing the opposite and lining up for a year of rising production, higher average prices and additional pipeline capacity from producing basins. In short, 2020 should be a year in which supplies in the region mount a comeback after the dismal down year for supplies — and prices — that characterized 2019. A good part of that supply and pipeline capacity growth optimism has to do with a major pipeline expansion out of the Montney Basin in northeastern British Columbia that just recently entered service. Dubbed the North Montney Mainline and operated by Canada’s largest gas pipeline company, TC Energy, this vital piece of new pipeline egress from one of the most prolific unconventional gas basins in North America is setting up Western Canadian gas supplies for recovery in 2020 and beyond. Today, we continue our series with a look at what this may portend for gas supplies this year.

Canadian oil and natural gas producers were dancing very much to the same tune as their U.S. counterparts in 2019: reduce capital spending, live within cash flow and improve returns to investors. The only major difference for Canadian gas producers is that they were forced to dance even faster due to abysmal natural gas pricing during the summer of 2019, which cast a very negative pall over the whole sector for the remainder of last year. Although the focus on spending restraint, cash flow and returns has not changed for these producers upon entering 2020, there are encouraging signals that Canadian gas pricing will be materially improved this year, especially during the summer months, supporting higher cash flows and a cautious expansion in capital spending. Today, we examine the drivers behind what might increase capital spending by gas producers and lead to an increase in supplies.

This year looks like it could be a better one for many Canadian natural gas producers. Like their brethren in the U.S., they have been forced in recent years to increasingly spend within — and even less than — cash flow as other sources of financing have dried up and investors have prioritized better returns over production volume growth. With Canadian gas producers having also faced some of the worst natural gas pricing conditions on record in 2019, far worse than those in the U.S., it is no wonder that Canadian natural gas supplies pulled back in 2019, marking the first down year for overall gas supplies since 2012. Despite what is likely still to be a cash flow and spending constrained environment in 2020, there is the potential for real upside for Western Canadian natural gas supplies this year, especially for the supply that flows into TC Energy’s Nova pipeline system. Today, we consider what may be setting the stage for gas supply gains on the Nova system in 2020 after a somewhat dismal 2019.