Canada → U.S. Natural Gas Pipeline Imports

Canada supplies ~95% of U.S. natural gas imports — currently — bcf/d flowing south through five major pipeline crossings. The trade has been in structural decline for a decade as Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia displaced Canadian gas in the Northeast, but Pacific Northwest and California still rely heavily on Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin gas via the GTN and Westcoast systems. Reverse flows during summer (U.S. → Canada) reduce the net to roughly — bcf/d.

Pipeline gas from Canada bar length ∝ bcf/d · capacity-weighted allocation across crossings

Gross pipeline imports

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bcf/d · all crossings, Canada → U.S.

% of U.S. gas supply

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of production + imports

Western corridor

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Kingsgate + Sumas + Morgan

Net imports (gross − reverse)

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U.S. ships gas back to Ontario in winter peak

SOURCE · U.S. Energy Information Administration, Natural Gas Monthly import movements by entry point (Table 4.2); pipeline operators (TC Energy, Enbridge, Williams, Energy Transfer/Northern Border). Per-crossing allocation is seeded from each pipeline system's design capacity and recent utilization patterns; FERC pipeline flow data isn't available via a clean public API. The WCSB (Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin) is the source for most of this gas, including Alberta's Montney + Duvernay shales and BC's Horn River. Canada itself imports U.S. gas from the Midwest into Ontario during summer (when Eastern Canadian demand is low but TC Mainline capacity is contracted), so net imports are several bcf/d lower than the gross figure on this page. Marcellus shale's growth since 2010 has cut U.S. dependence on Niagara/Iroquois flows roughly in half — the Northeast now pulls more gas from Pennsylvania than from Ontario.

SECOND·ORDER·EDGE

The historical anchorof U.S. gas trade

The historical anchor
of U.S. gas trade