Natural gas producers await LNG Canada's start, but will it be the fix for prices?

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.

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.

"As a producer, it would not be economic to have produced that gas . . . It's been pretty worthless."

In the past week, AECO spot prices have hovered between $1.20 and $1.60 per gigajoule, a significant improvement over last month's bottom-barrel prices but still well below the 2023 average price of $2.74 per gigajoule, according to Alberta Energy Regulator figures.

The bearish prices have come due to a combination of increased production levels — up about six per cent year-over-year so far in 2024 —as well as last year's mild winter, which resulted in less natural gas consumption for heating purposes. There is now an oversupply of natural gas in Western Canada, so much so that natural gas storage capacity in Alberta is essentially full.