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The rise of the U.S. was highlighted as a big concern by the panel that recently reviewed Alberta royalty rates. “The U.S. is now a rejuvenated force in oil and gas production, one that poses huge risks to Alberta’s market share,” the panel said in its report. “This is problematic, since we have long relied on the U.S. as our primary (and to some extent, only) customer, and we do not have sufficient means to move and sell our oil and gas to other countries.”

Sales of U.S. oil to Canada have soared tenfold to 422,000 barrels a day during this decade, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The U.S. has also been selling about two billion cubic feet a day (bcf/d) of its gas to eastern Canadian consumers since the start of the decade. Meanwhile, exports of Canadian natural gas to the U.S. have dropped off to about seven bcf/d, from a high of 10 bcf/d in 2007. Only Canadian oil exports to the U.S. remain on the upswing — though not as much as they would have been if the Keystone XL pipeline had been approved — rising to nearly 3.2 million b/d in 2015, from about two million five years ago.

On the natural gas side, the U.S. expanded production from shale in seven years to 37 bcf/d, nearly four times Alberta’s entire gas production of 10 bcf/d. Over the same period, U.S. oil production nearly doubled to about nine million barrels a day, more than four times Alberta’s production of just over two million b/d from the oilsands.

A big reason for the divide is that while Canadians keep talking about whether to keep fossil fuels in the ground, the Americans put their oil “on ships in the Gulf Coast and bring it around to harbours here in Canada,” says Tim McMillan, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Their faster response also means they are attracting the capital, he adds. “If infrastructure is built in the Marcellus, and not in the Montney [in Western Canada], the next incremental dollar is more likely to go to the Marcellus,” McMillan says.