Exporting energy

It might surprise people to know that more than 21 per cent of the United States’ crude oil comes from Canada, said the president of the Oil Sands Developers Group.

“Canada is a big supplier not only of crude oil but also of energy sources such as exported electricity, natural gas and uranium they use to generate their own electricity,” said Don Thompson, president of the non-profit, industry-funded association based in Fort McMurray.

The energy and trading relationships between Canada and the U.S. are essential, said Thompson, who was in Thunder Bay Monday to speak to students at Lakehead University about balancing the need to protect the environment with the economic and energy security contributions of the Alberta oil sands.

“I think as we watch events unfold in the Middle East on our TV screens at home, we as Canadians and North Americans are all beginning to rethink what energy security means for us,” he said.

It’s an issue on the minds of many, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper who met with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington D.C. last Friday to discuss a number of issues, including whether to approve the Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline.

With Canada’s oil sands now producing 1.4 million barrels of crude oil daily, the question is whether the country has the capacity to supply the U.S. with more oil than it already does.

“We have growth plans that could see that production grow to 3 or 4 million barrels a day,” said Thompson. “There is tremendous capacity in the oil sands not just to supply Canada, but in fact contribute to energy security continentally.”

Thompson came to speak to LU students as the future business leaders of Canada and added Thunder Bay is an important city to the oil sands as it acts as a gateway for goods through both the port and by rail and also as source of workers.

“We have seen things like the large reactor vessels move by water and of course many of the imported goods flow by rail through Thunder Bay so all modes of transportation move through your city, so it’s a pretty important hub not just for the oil sands but for western Canada,” he said.

He was also speaking Monday about the need to protect the environment while still having the ability to fulfill the demand for crude oil.

“We have employed new technology such that we’ve been able to drive down our greenhouse gas emissions by 39 per cent since 1990,” she said. “We currently produce 70 per cent of Canada’s crude oil requirements and we use one per cent of the mean annual flow of the Athabasca River.”