The Canadian Freight Analysis Framework (CFAF) provides a picture of freight flows across the country by geography, commodity and mode of transportation. Estimates are available by tonnage, value and tonne-kilometres. The database can be used to analyze a number of transportation-related matters, such as highway capacity, traffic forecasting, investments in infrastructure and trade flows.
In March 2019, Statistics Canada released the second iteration of the CFAF, covering the period from 2011 to 2016 for the airline, for-hire trucking and railway industries. Subsequent versions of the framework will add the remaining modes of transportation, including pipeline, marine, and own-account or private trucking.
Integrating pipeline data into the CFAF presents challenges because no data are collected specifically for this reason (i.e., as a transportation file). A methodology was developed as a proof of concept to generate the CFAF variables for oil transported by pipelines in Alberta using administrative data obtained from Petrinex.
Petrinex, Canada’s Petroleum Information Network, is a joint strategic organization supporting Canada’s upstream, midstream, and downstream oil and gas industry. The organization reports, manages, and exchanges up-to-date volumetric, royalty, and commercial information with governments and industry members. It is currently used in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.
Volumetric data for each pipeline system in Alberta are reported to Petrinex on a monthly basis. The data include the amount of oil (crude, condensate and syncrude) moved between facilities (e.g., battery or tank terminal) for a given pipeline. Monthly CFAF data for oil transported by pipelines were generated from this source for January 2016 to February 2018. The monthly files contain the following variables: commodity, geography (origin and destination), number of shipments, volume (m3), weight (tonnes), distance and tonne-kilometres.
The distance between origin and destination pairs was calculated using the straight-line distance. Over long distances, the straight-line distance is likely considerably shorter than the network distance. To improve this variable, a spatial pipeline network for Alberta has been developed, using publicly available data from the Alberta Energy Regulator.
Next steps for the project will include incorporating data for the two additional provinces covered by Petrinex—Saskatchewan and British Columbia—using the developed methodology. For regions not covered by Petrinex, other data sources will be examined. Additionally, movements of natural gas by pipelines will also be integrated in the future.
For more information, please contact Statistics Canada (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca).