Natural Gas Facts
Natural gas is one of the cleanest burning fossil fuels.
Natural gas can form over time from almost any organic material. It is generally located deep underground in porous rock or trapped between more solid rock formations.
The first natural gas well was drilled in 1883 in a field near Medicine Hat, Alberta.
A gigajoule (GJ), a unit for measuring natural gas, is the energy equivalent of about 30 litres of gasoline.
The average Albertan household uses 120 GJs of natural gas a year.
Alberta produces enough natural gas per year to heat every home in Alberta for about 30 years.
In 2010, there were 4,209 successful natural gas well connections in Alberta.
About 75 per cent of Canada’s natural gas production is from Alberta.
Alberta’s total marketable natural gas production, including coalbed methane, was 4.1 trillion cubic feet in 2010. Alberta consumed 38 per cent (1.58 trillion cubic feet) of its marketable natural gas, with the remaining 62 per cent (2.55 trillion cubic feet) being delivered to other Canadian provinces and the United States.
Coalbed methane is natural gas found in coal seams. There may be up to 500 trillion cubic feet of coalbed methane in Alberta, although not all of this will be recoverable.
Presently, coalbed methane represents about six per cent of total natural gas production in Alberta.
Alberta has one of the most extensive natural gas systems in the world as part of its energy infrastructure, with 392,000 kilometres of energy related pipelines.
Natural gas in Alberta is used primarily for industrial use, electricity generation and residential and commercial space heating.
In the 2010/11 fiscal period, the government received about $8.4 billion in non-renewable resource revenue accounting for about 22 per cent of total government revenue. In 2010/11, natural gas and by-product revenue was about $1.42 billion or approximately four per cent of government revenue.
According to Statistics Canada, Alberta residential consumers pay approximately 33 per cent less for their natural gas than the average Canadian in other provinces in 2010.
