LIV: Canada needs to expand energy market beyond US
Canada needs to expand energy market beyond US
Canada needs to expand its energy market beyond its southern neighbor and access the Asian market, according to a former environment minister.
Selling more Crude Oil to China and the rest of Asia was “obviously where the future has to be,” Jim Prentice told a forum on Canada-US business relations Monday.
In the “so-called global energy game,” Canada was not “playing with sufficient skill, foresight or cohesiveness,” said Prentice, who was Canada’s industry minister and later environment minister before leaving politics in late Y 2010 to become senior executive vice-president and vice-chairman of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
In his keynote address to the Washington, DC based Canadian American Business Councils 18th annual policy forum, Prentice said Canada exported 99% of its Crude Oil to the United States and sold it at a 35% “discount” to the going global rate, making Canada more of a “price-taker” than a “price-maker.”
He said, as the United States was on its way to achieving energy self-sufficiency and becoming the world’s largest oil producer, Canada should access the market in China, where the bi-lateral relationship was “blossoming.”
David Jacobson, the US Ambassador to Canada, told the forum his country would also benefit from greater trade between Canada and China, since “25 cents of every dollar that Canada exports is US content.”
In a statement issued before the forum began, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper characterized the Canada-US relationship as one of the world’s “closest and most extensive,” noting that bi-lateral merchandise trade between the 2 countries last year was valued at 611-B Canadian dollars (about US$613-B).
Marking its 25th anniversary, the focus of this year’s CABC policy forum was “what is next” for the Canadian-American business community following US President Obama’s re-election.
