Future of Canadian tight oil hangs on net-zero progress

Report by Canada Energy Regulator outlines three different scenarios, with the global push for decarbonisation the key to future production levels

Canada may not have the massive tight oil resource of the US, but it is a still significant producer, with several smaller formations spread across the west of the country having a total output of more than 250,000b/d in 2023, according to Jean-Denis Charlebois, chief economist at the Canada Energy Regulator (CER)—the only organisation that provides publicly available medium- and long-term outlooks for Canadian tight oil. Tight oil represents almost a third of Western Canada’s conventional crude oil production, but only 5% of the Canadian total—with oil sands production holding the lion’s share. At the same time, “Canadian tight oil differs from US resource, and basically everywhere else, be