Market Snapshot: Canadian crude refinery runs held steady in 2025

Release date: 2026-03-25

Crude oil refineries are located across Canada, each with different capacities. In 2025, these refineries consumed 1.6 million barrels per day (MMb/d) of crude oil, which is 90% of their total capacity. Refinery utilization rates have remained steady since 2022. Depending on the location of each refinery, some rely solely on crude oil sourced from western Canada, and others rely partly on crude oil imports.

Canadian refineries

Canada has 16 refineries^Footnote 1 that can process up to 1.9 MMb/d of crude oil^Footnote 2 into refined petroleum products like gasoline, jet fuel, asphalt, lubricants, and diesel.^Footnote 3 The majority of these products are consumed within Canada, while about 20% are exported to other countries.^Footnote 4 Figure 1 shows the locations of the crude oil refineries in Canada.

Figure 1: Crude oil refineries in Canada

Crude runs steady since 2022

Crude runs^Footnote 5 represent the volume of crude oil processed by refineries. In 2025, Canadian refineries processed 1.6 MMb/d of crude oil, which is 90% of their capacity. Annual average crude runs and capacity utilization have remained relatively constant since 2022, once refined product demand recovered from COVID-19 pandemic levels.

In-year changes in refinery utilization rates are driven in part by seasonal maintenance, also called turnarounds. Towards the end of April 2025, weekly utilization dipped to a low of 67% as weekly crude runs dropped to 1.2 MMb/d due to refineries performing spring turnarounds. There was a smaller decline to 1.6 MMb/d of weekly crude runs (86% utilization) in late September for fall turnarounds. A peak of 98% utilization and 1.8 MMb/d of weekly crude runs were reached in early November, as refineries rebounded from fall maintenance.

Refineries in western Canada as well as those east of Ontario (“Quebec & Eastern Canada”)^Footnote 6 processed nearly equal amounts of crude oil in 2025, at 619 thousand barrels per day (Mb/d) (89% of capacity) and 624 Mb/d (89% of capacity), respectively. Refineries in Ontario, with lower capacity, consumed almost half that amount in 2025, at 386 Mb/d of crude oil (92% of its capacity).

Figure 2: Weekly Canadian refinery crude runs

Supply of crude oil to Canadian refineries

Canada produces more crude oil than Canadian refineries process. Western Canadian refineries process domestic crude oil feedstock because they have close proximity and direct pipeline connections to the major production source of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin.

Refineries in New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario import a portion of their crude oil feedstock.^Footnote 7 The Irving Oil Refinery in New Brunswick is not connected by pipeline to any source of crude oil, so it imports most of its feedstock from the United States (U.S.) via marine. In 2025, New Brunswick imported 270 Mb/d of crude oil (147 Mb/d, or 54%, from the U.S.).^Footnote 8 The refineries in Quebec and Ontario source their feedstock from western Canada via the Enbridge Mainline and Enbridge Line 9, and also import some crude oil—primarily from the U.S.—via these pipelines and other modes of transportation. In 2025, Quebec imported 126 Mb/d of crude oil (99.99% from the U.S.), and Ontario imported 87 Mb/d of crude oil (99.78% from the U.S.).

Date modified:

2026-03-25