Joe Oliver, Canada s minister of natural resources, would have a challenging job under favorable circumstances, but these days, circumstances are far from favorable. The US, long Canada's largest - and only - natural gas customer, is on the verge of becoming self-sufficient in natural gas, thanks to the shale gale. The surplus in shale gas, especially from the Marcellus and Utica shales adjacent to Canada's largest consuming areas in Ontario and Quebec, also has taken those markets away from Canadian producers. US suppliers can deliver the gas more economically from just a few hundred miles away through mostly US pipelines than the gas can travel through TransCanada's expensive mainline from Alberta. For now, however, Canada has nowhere else to send its natural gas. As a result, production is falling. The bigger problem is with oil. Again, the US is the only customer, but due to the unexpected and unprecedented jump in unconventional oil production in the US, Canadian oil output has been disrupted.
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