Natural gas producers in Western Canada have white-knuckled it through months of depressed prices, with the expectation that their fortunes will improve when LNG Canada comes online in the middle of next year.
But the supply glut plaguing the industry this fall is so large that not everyone is convinced the massive facility’s impact on pricing will be as dramatic or sustained as once hoped.
As the colder temperatures set in and Canadians turn on their furnaces, natural gas producers in Alberta and B.C. are finally starting to see some improvement after months of low prices that prompted some companies to delay their growth plans or shut in production altogether.
“We’ve pretty much been as low as you can go on natural gas prices. There were days when (the Alberta natural gas benchmark AECO price) was essentially pennies,” said Jason Feit, an advisor at Enverus Intelligence Research, in an interview.
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“As a producer, it would not be economic …