Canada: Regulators say electricity demand, natural gas production to accelerate by 2050

A long-term outlook from the Canada Energy Regulator on Tuesday says both electricity demand and Canadian natural gas production will accelerate by 2050.

The regulator analyzed a ‌variety of potential scenarios, including a baseline that assumes existing government policies and moderate economic growth, as well as other scenarios assuming higher or lower energy prices and a scenario assuming greater climate action in the future.

In all cases, the regulator sees electricity demand in Canada rising substantially, ranging between a 26% to 85% increase from 2023 to 2050.

Rising electricity demand is attributable to projected electric vehicle uptake and demand from AI data centers.

The outlook sees Canadian natural gas production rising in all scenarios, from 18.3 billion cubic feet per day in 2024 to between 21 bcf/d and 32 bcf/d by 2050, depending on ‌natural gas prices and LNG export volumes.

In all scenarios, most of the increase in natural gas production is exported as LNG.

Canada's crude oil production varies significantly across the scenarios.

By 2050, Canadian crude oil production could be between 4.8 million barrels per day on the low end and 6.5 million bpd on the high end, the regulator said. That's compared to the 5.5 million bpd of crude oil Canada produced in 2024.

In most scenarios, crude production continues to rise on higher oil prices, but the regulator said crude production could decline if Canada implements policies aimed at achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.