Canada has enough natural gas in place to maintain current production for nearly a century, according to a study released on Wednesday.
The Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas estimates there are between 700 trillion and 1,300 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas reserves in conventional and unconventional plays such as shale, tight sands and coal-bed methane, well ahead of the U.S. Energy Information Administration's proved reserve estimate of 57.9 tcf.
"Based on current annual natural gas production rates of between 5 and 6 tcf, this report demonstrates that Canada has a natural gas resource to last more than 100 years," Mike Dawson, CSUG's president, said in a release.
Unconventional gas sources such as shale, where huge amounts of gas are trapped in deep shale formations, have helped offset declining conventional reserves in Canada but have been more widely developed in the United States.
New drilling techniques have cut the cost of tapping unconventional reserves and boosted estimates of North America's gas supply.
