Canada's Natural Gas Exports: A Drop in the Ocean or a Crucial Trade Lever?

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently claimed that Canada fuels American growth by exporting natural gas. However, a top commodities analyst at Wood Mackenzie disputes this notion, stating that Canadian shipments of natural gas to the U.S. are tiny compared with America's domestic production.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that U.S. imports from Canada averaged 8.6 billion cubic feet per day in 2025, representing virtually all of America's non-domestic supply. However, this is only a sliver of overall U.S. natural gas consumption, about eight percent by the EIA's numbers.

Dulles Wang, director of Americas gas and LNG at Wood Mackenzie, notes that last number is actually as low as five percent, by his firm's estimates. He also points out that natural gas pipelines sprawl across North America like a massive spider web, crossing the Canada-U.S. border in about two dozen locations.

According to Wang, halting U.S.-bound natural gas shipments would be painful for the industry in Canada, as it would lead to a glut of supply trapped in Canada, causing prices to plunge. 'We're talking about a quite severe economic impact to the downside if we were to stop exporting gas to the U.S.,' he said.