CALGARY — Some specialized natural gas drilling rigs in British Columbia are already fully booked, even as Canada’s energy contractors forecast a roughly 10% drop in wells drilled across Western Canada in 2027.Mark Scholz, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Energy Contractors (CAOEC), said some members have no spare capacity heading into winter.“In some of our rig classifications, the market is incredibly tight,” Scholz told reporters in Calgary on Friday.He said many of the specialized rigs used to drill deep natural gas formations in BC are completely booked.The CAOEC’s forecast illustrates a regional divide in Western Canada, with BC’s annual average active rig count projected to rise from 13 this year to 17 in 2029, while Alberta’s falls from 166 to 148.Citing an S&P Global Energy report released Thursday, Scholz said that Canada’s goal of reaching 100 million tonnes of annual LNG exports by 2050 would require tripling the country’s natural gas drilling..Canadian oil and gas sector faces slower drilling activity through 2029.S&P estimates Canada is currently on track to reach 36 million tonnes of annual LNG exports by 2050.The report found that, globally, “the past two years have seen an unprecedented wave of investment, and global LNG supply is expected to grow 50% over the next five years.”S&P now expects “that the market opportunity will be greatly reduced after 2027 until the early 2030s, increasing the urgency for project development.”Scholz estimated BC alone would need upwards of 34 additional high-spec drilling rigs to help reach the 100-million-tonne annual export goal.“Currently, we don't have that type of capacity,” he stated.“The market is tight today. We are actually looking at entering into a future market of actually potentially building new equipment in this country again, definitely bringing equipment up from the United States, upgrading existing rigs to bring them up to higher levels of capacity.”He added that the increased capacity would also require pipelines and export terminals.“We have to get shovels in the ground. We have to get infrastructure built. That goes for oil pipelines, but it also goes for LNG terminals as well,” Scholz said.
