Canada’s natural gas vehicle market has been relatively slow to develop but that may be about to change. Canada is well endowed with 300 years of natural gas reserves and is the home of leading NGV technology and dedicated NGV proponents. A new Natural Gas Solutions document from Canadian Gas Association and advocacy and leadership from the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance are raising awareness of natural gas as a potential major contributor to the nation’s environmental objectives.

Canada is the world’s fifth-largest producer of natural gas. However, as stated by Forbes, “In this booming age of natural gas, high-resourced Canada has seen flat production and demand over the past decade”. Its natural gas market is heavily integrated with those of the U.S. largely due to the location of supply basins, demand centres, and the availability of transportation infrastructure, as well as existing Canada – U.S. trade agreements. The Government of Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) reports that natural gas exports from all Canadian sources in 2018 declined by 6% compared to 2017, with almost all of that gas going across the border. Furthermore, NEB predicts that southern market to become “negligible” by 2040. This situation lends impetus to explore new export markets by way of shipped LNG, but also to look at ways to stimulate domestic consumption.

By NGV Global News