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Having said all that, we should expect to see a lot of Canadian companies on the major project cancellation list. Canada is the fourth largest producer of oil in the world. All in, we have the third biggest oil reserves after state-controlled Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Because of this large endowment, we should not be surprised to see a large fraction of Canadian projects on the cancellation list. Further, the oilsands are among the most scalable resources in the world, so they naturally lend themselves to megaprojects. And because they are so large, and soak up billions of dollars, they also naturally lend themselves to early cancellation when the corporate purse gets tight.

But here’s a piece of statistical knowledge that spans all producers: Canada’s oil industry has contributed almost 1.0 million barrels a day, or 17.5 per cent, to the world’s net production growth over the past five years. Since the end of 2012, our net contribution has been 22 per cent. In this regard, Canada can be considered a prime contributor to today’s oil oversupply and price war.

Yet if Canada has been a thoroughbred in supply growth, what does it mean when its reins are pulled in with 16 megaproject cancellations? A few weeks ago the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) cut its long-term oil growth forecast by a million barrels a day. Given prevailing market conditions, CAPP’s growth projection is still likely to be optimistic.

The implications of today’s major oil project cancellations, disclosed and undisclosed, in Canada and abroad, will be profound in a few years when the barrels from mothballed projects don’t show up. More price volatility is highly likely, but there will be derivative impacts on environment, transitions to alternative energy systems, and investment. We will explore these themes in future columns, because Confucius says that, “If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.”