How Alberta’s Oil Patch Sees Its Future
CEOs' view of future oil and gas consumptions based on OPEC, ExxonMobil, Shell, and other conservative demand modelling studies
In a November 6, 2025 essay I I examined the growth, status quo, and decline models for the future of global oil consumption. I'm not an economist or an econometric modeller, but I can compare the assumptions that underlie those models. How fast will the transportation sector electrify, for example? Based on the trends I laid out in the essay, the decline model is the most likely. The international Energy Agency’s APS, the most commonly cited scenario, thinks oil demand will fall from its height of 105 million barrels per day to 57 million barrels per day.
The APS would be a very difficult future for the Alberta oil patch.
Despite the evidence, Canadian energy decision makers are firmly convinced that the future will look more like the expansionist modelling released by OPEC, Exxon Mobil, Shell, and the US Energy Information Administration. From that point of view, the next 25 years will be the golden age of hydrocarbons.
When a press release from law firm Burnett, Duckworth, and Palmer LLP, which handles a great deal of oil patch legal work, landed in my inbox touting the firm’s understanding of the evolution of energy, I was intrigued. Grant Zawalsky, senior partner and vice-chair, sat down with me for an interview. It was a good interview, grounded in the current realities of the the Canadian oil and gas industry.
But, if you’re a regular reader of these essays and viewer of Energi Media’s YouTube channel, you know that it’s the post-2030 future I worry about.
That’s the value of the interview with Zawalsky. It reinforces my long-held belief, which is buttressed by many interviews and public comments by the oil industry, that decision-makers are not addressing the real risk of the APS scenario. Given the tens of billions taxpayers are likely to spend on infrastructure projects like pipelines, we’ve all get skin in the game.
Give the interview a watch. It’s an interesting 13 minutes.
I still don't understand your belief that the Midwest, where the vast majority of our heavy crude goes and, with no sizable chemical industry to speak of, is turned into gasoline and diesel, is a safer longterm market than getting access to Asia, where there is much higher demand for petrochemical and asphalt for new countries developing infrastructure.
The EV policy announcement made yesterday is more important to me than any pipeline, and I agree so widely with your views on the energy transition, but I don't see how the oilsands can survive without access to markets in Asia.